Back in Canada visiting my family, I’ve been exposed to some different commercials recently. One of the most noteworthy is the new Bell campaign. I had noticed some odd typography in the ads, and my brother also commented on it. The ads show different slogans, “today just got better“, “apple eater“, “rocker” with the “er” bold and blue. Uhhh, so what’s the point?
I was caught yet again wondering about marketers. “Let’s come up with something that will get people talking!”. This reminded me of the typical request “Let’s make a viral video”. Obviously, no one sets out to make a crappy campaign or slogan, but the best ones are going to be borne not from a desire to confuse or confound people, but rather from a strong foundation of clear objectives and a tie to the actual message to be delivered.
After trying to decipher the meaning of the mysterious “er”, I finally decided to see if there was any explanation of the campaign online. I found nothing official, but did come across the engadget article, “Bell Kicks off Inexplicable Er Marketing Campaign“. Sounds like the Hill family aren’t the only folks unsure of what the point of this message is.
I will admit, I’m very practical. I don’t care much for flourish; design for me is about elegant, simple solutions. So unless there is a reason to emphasis two letters (two letters that really have little semantic value on their own), don’t do it.
Perhaps I’m wrong. There may be some ingenious meaning behind this whole thing, and when it is unveiled, I will be impressed with the message. But until then, I will be of the opinion that they need something wittier.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
honestly, i’m waiting for their customer service department to launch their ass-fuckER ads.
When it comes to trying to be clever with an ad campaign,
your guess is as good as mine. A teaser is always good,
but it’s hard to make any sense of the new Bell campaign.
Their tag lines ending in “er” bold and blue, so it really
stands out, emphasized. Still…..there has been no reference
to what it means……..not yet anyway…..
In the mean time let’s try to figured it out on our own……
ok….so the most commonly known “er’” that we know
stands for Emergency Room……ok so it’s not that!
Someone who is an Engineer will use Er to abbreviate
their degree…..it’s not that! Could it be mean the chemical element
Erbium – Er on periodic table…..I don’t think so………
How about Entity-Relationship – is an abstract conceptual representation
of structured data………sounds good….but…no…….
What about Er as in the Cyrillic alphabet….uhhhh……NO
Er as the Biblical name – was the eldest son of Judah……sorry
Er as in Earned Run – a concept in the game of baseball…..No chance
How about the suffix “er” as degrees of comparison……
example when something is green-er, or fast-er, bright-er, you can see where I’m going, but it doesn’t work with the words they are using……tasker,rocker or invader…….oh well….
Alright, so what about “er” a filler word used in dialogue displaying uncertainty
you know what I mean “uh”, the way kids talk “um” like yknow, s’up eh….
“er” is one of those gap fillers………..could work….appealing to the youth market
I think the best one would be the following
Extended Range – “er’ – usually referring to missiles or aircraft……
but this could work, referring to communication…uuuhhmmmm???
Or prehaps it means actually nothing at all……just to get people like me and you wondering and talking about the new Bell campaign. I guess they’d rather spend millions on a stupid ad campaign than keep valuable dedicated employees who’ve worked super hard for years, it’s disrespectful and disgraceful.
Hello Bell !….In the near future I’ll be disconnecting everything….
cell, satellite and even my land-line…… goodbye!!!
I’m guessing Employee Relations.