The new Facebook Chairs ad doesn’t tell me anything about the social media site or their one billion user milestone.
What is this spot telling me? Facebook has a place for everyone? I wasn’t aware that was a concern. “Gee, I hope Facebook has room for my account.”
The whole spot seems like a last-minute idea-by-committee concept that an Art Director approved because he liked the way it made him feel. According to the agency, Wieden + Kennedy, they were working on this for more than a year and “spent months meeting with Facebook staffers and getting to know the company”. Months of research resulted in chairs, doorbells, airplanes, and basketball games. Not a good sign.
But my problems with the spot go beyond the items used. How about knowing the difference between a chair and a bench? In their chair-oriented segment, they show a bench three times. A bench isn’t a chair. But it would have been a better analogy because benches are meant for more than one person, like a social media site. A chair is intended for one. Alone. Separated.
By far, the most perplexing item included is “the universe“. Something so vast, empty, and unknown to us that we will can’t traverse it in the next 10 generations of humanity. I’m not sure how this makes us feel connected.
Wieden + Kennedy have made some amazing spots in the past for a variety of great clients. But Facebook Chairs should not go in the portfolio. It poorly communicates a strange message from a recently beleaguered client grasping for positive PR. There are plenty of people at the agency and Facebook who should have said, “we need to start over”.
What do you think of the new commercial? Share a comment below.
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YourPop
October 4, 2012 at 4:17 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
reminds me of that song from Sound of Music “My Favorite Things” ….
Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things
Cream colored ponies and crisp apple strudels
Door bells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles
Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings
These are a few of my favorite things
Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes
Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes
Silver white winters that melt into Springs
These are a few of my favorite things
When the dog bites
When the bee stings
When I’m feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don’t feel so bad.
Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things
Cream colored ponies and crisp apple strudels
Door bells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles
Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings
These are a few of my favorite things
Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes
Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes
Silver white winters that melt into Springs
These are a few of my favorite things
When the dog bites
When the bee stings
When I’m feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don’t feel so bad.
Pointless. Not too many really give a fig about my favorite things and i don’t give a rat’s ____ about the chairs.
Nathan Greenberg
October 6, 2012 at 7:17 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Thanks for commenting. You’re reinforcing my point that this ad doesn’t make a connection to people. It can’t do that if it doesn’t make sense.
Rose
April 21, 2013 at 10:45 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
A compilation of nonsensical, even ridiculous, metaphors. It reminds me of the (very) bad art that some (bad) artists put together thinking they can get away with it because they are “artists”. Some corporations are using these “creative” people to do their advertising… I would be willing to bet facebook did just that here.
On the other hand, the fact that facebook would need to sell itself through advertising is also very interesting to me, a facebook user with no intention of exploring other social media, not out of loyalty but because I would find that simply boring.
My Experience at Digital Dealer 13 - Nathan Greenberg .com
October 29, 2012 at 4:16 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
[...] with Facebook’s advertising assumptions and metrics. (This is separate from my recent “unlike” of their Chairs commercial.) Like Google’s, the Facebook keynote didn’t go as deep as I would have liked, but the [...]