When Advertising Works Too Well

More of this Feature • Part 1: Ads Sent Pac Bell Packing • Part 3: Why It Worked    Join the Discussion "Can you think of other ads that have worked too well?" In the Advertising Forum     Related Resources • Television Advertising • Television Resources • Inside the Industry    Elsewhere on the Web • View the Neighborhood Ad • View the Cops Ad

Life on Laurel Lane was good until everyone in the neighborhood started sharing a cable line for Internet access. The ad shows the frustrations felt by the residents when they experience slower navigation on the Net.

In one house, a woman pounds her desk. In another, a girl screams at her computer monitor.

These modern-day inconveniences create quite a stir in the neighborhood. Children are playing with a balloon when it floats over to an elderly woman's yard. She punctures it.

A paper boy is plummeted to the ground and off his bike after a neighbor rockets the newspaper back at him. A man's garage is spray-painted with the words "Web Hog" and he's in a shouting match with two very young culprits over who's the real "Web Hog."

An ice cream truck drives down Laurel Lane, not stopping but displaying his own spray-painted message: Log Off! One neighbor's aggravation is clearly featured as he stops trimming his own hedges to lower the trimmer into his neighbor's flowerbed.

The commercial's tag line:

Don't share a cable line. Get Pacific Bell DSL.
Always fast. Never shared.

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