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IBM's commercials are pretentious and annoying.
The message is "We know what we are doing, you dont have a clue." How do I reach that conclusion? Look at the subject in their commercials. I'm not in advertising, Ming maybe you have a comment, but I believe IBMs goal is that you are supposed to identify with the subject. You are supposed to observe what is happening to the subject as if it were happening to you, you are supposed to receive the message being sent to the subject by others as if the message was being sent to you. Two recent IBM commercials had a little white-haired kid and a slackjawed corporate grunt as subjects.
Seen those ones with the little kid with his hair dyed white sitting in the middle of foreign cities looking around with a blank stare? What the **** is that all about? The message is you the consumer are this helpless consumer, like a strange looking child who cant interact with his surroundings at that, and IBM is there to guide you through foreign territory.
And how about the slackjawed corporate grunt sitting with his pal at a diner while some guy with a foreign accent is busily tapping away on his laptop. The foreign guy speaks rapidly using technical jargon about wireless services as he answers dumb questions from the grunt. The corporate grunt cant formulate an intelligent question and is resigned to making stupid faces and giving one-word responses to the foreign guy. The message to upper-level management there is: your front-line employees are too stupid to learn this stuff on their own - we'll have to take your hand and lead you.
Fact is IBM's middleware is ****. It is not a very flexible product and its consultants are not proficient in configuring it and improvising when problems occur. I have been involved with two seperate ERP implementations where IBMs MQ Series are involved so I know what I'm talking about. And their consultants are just as pretentious and annoying as their commercials.
The message is "We know what we are doing, you dont have a clue." How do I reach that conclusion? Look at the subject in their commercials. I'm not in advertising, Ming maybe you have a comment, but I believe IBMs goal is that you are supposed to identify with the subject. You are supposed to observe what is happening to the subject as if it were happening to you, you are supposed to receive the message being sent to the subject by others as if the message was being sent to you. Two recent IBM commercials had a little white-haired kid and a slackjawed corporate grunt as subjects.
Seen those ones with the little kid with his hair dyed white sitting in the middle of foreign cities looking around with a blank stare? What the **** is that all about? The message is you the consumer are this helpless consumer, like a strange looking child who cant interact with his surroundings at that, and IBM is there to guide you through foreign territory.
And how about the slackjawed corporate grunt sitting with his pal at a diner while some guy with a foreign accent is busily tapping away on his laptop. The foreign guy speaks rapidly using technical jargon about wireless services as he answers dumb questions from the grunt. The corporate grunt cant formulate an intelligent question and is resigned to making stupid faces and giving one-word responses to the foreign guy. The message to upper-level management there is: your front-line employees are too stupid to learn this stuff on their own - we'll have to take your hand and lead you.
Fact is IBM's middleware is ****. It is not a very flexible product and its consultants are not proficient in configuring it and improvising when problems occur. I have been involved with two seperate ERP implementations where IBMs MQ Series are involved so I know what I'm talking about. And their consultants are just as pretentious and annoying as their commercials.
Woot!
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