This week in Commercial Creepazoids. 4/26/11

To be a CEO of a major American company, you have to be equal parts ruthless, relentless and willing to gut your competitors like a fish.  You also have to be extremely narcissistic, which is why we see so many CEOs in commercials for their own company.  If you think about it, this is the height of vanity.  

These CEOs believe that they are the most important thing the company has going for them, not the product, the employees, certainly not the customers.  They crave the spotlight and are desperate to be paraded in front of the cameras... so long as its not because of bad publicity.  Of course, CEOs are like professional athletes, insulated from criticism and often never told no or "that's a bad idea."  It's why 60% of NBA players declare bankruptcy after retiring, and why some CEOs make really bad commercials.

The poster child for athlete excess.

Don't get me wrong, sometimes the commercials work.  Dave Thomas of Wendy's literally revived his company by appearing in commercials in the late 1980s.  Brand awareness of the fast food chain skyrocketed, in part because Thomas was so folksy and unnatural on camera.  Why they're just a little mom and pop chain, let's go there for a burger tonight!

But Thomas ruined CEO commercials, soon every CEO with an elective acting class in college was running to get in front of the camera thinking they could get the same success.  But for every Orville Redenbacher or Tim and Gert Boyle, there are a dozen Dan Hesses.

Smug bastard.

Hesse is a creep.  But he wasn't always a creep!  Hesse has been appearing in Sprint commercials since 2009.  Previous iterations featured Hesse in a stylish black and white jaunt through Times Square, explaining why Sprint has the best network speed and so on.  Slate called Hesse a, "suave, urbane, corporate leader."  Or at least that was the image. 

Sprint and ad agency Goodby, Silverstein and Partners should have quit while they were ahead.  Because the current version makes Hesse look like a creep and furthermore, a dumb ass. 

Any time you use a phrase as cliched and trite as "The other day I looked (blank) up in the dictionary..." it's a sign of creative implosion.  Who among us didn't, in those desperate middle school days, start out an essay with "Webster's Dictionary defines...?"  It's the last desperate act when you are creatively exhausted.  It makes me wonder if Hesse isn't writing the copy for these commercials, because I find it hard to believe a professional ad copywriter could be this bad.  Right?  Right?

Unfortunately, the commercial also conjures up the image of Dan Hesse looking through the dictionary with a furrowed brow, desperate to figure out a big, imposing word that someone said to him.  Unlimited... hmm, that's a new one, gotta write that down, check out the dictionary tonight.  Don't let them see you sweat, you're the CEO of the third largest wireless company in the U.S., to be #1 you gotta know the big words.

Why can't cell phone companies get decent ads?  Between shirtless creepy guys, bespectacled creepy guys and absurdly creep guys... there seems to be a dearth of good ideas (Note to Dan Hesse, dearth means a scarcity.  Oh and scarcity means a lacking or "not being there."  Oh nevermind).  I appreciated Nextel's Walkie Talkie ads, they were clever and got the phone's main feature across to the viewer.  Sorry Dan, you're the Commercial Creepazoid of the week.  Down with CEOs, up with firefighters.