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Subject: MCI's Ads to Drive You Mad; New Campaign Another of the 'What Is
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 92 05:01:45 EST
Message-ID: <15.1992Nov5.050145@AmeriCast.com>

MCI's Ads to Drive You Mad; New Campaign Another of the 'What Is
It?' Variety<By Paul Farhi and Cindy Skrzycki=Washington Post
Staff Writers= Sinister-sounding music swells on the sound track.
Grainy, shadowy black-and-white images flicker on the screen.
"This can't go on," intones an anxious male voice. Then up comes
the Kennedy-style slogan: "If not us, who?  If not now, when?"

 All of which may have left viewers who saw this jagged imagery
on TV Tuesday night with a question of their own: Huh?

 Shot in a style that even Fellini might have deemed obtuse, the
bizarre 30-second drama is part of a new $10 million ad campaign
from MCI Communications Corp., the Washington-based long-distance
phone company.

 The commercials are MCI's way of telling small and medium-sized
businesses that they will soon be able to switch their 800 number
from their existing provider to MCI.

 If that message didn't quite come across loud and clear in  the
commercials that began airing Tuesday, MCI and its ad agency say
that's intentional.

Just as Infiniti tantalized car buyers with commercials featuring
trees and rocks but no cars, MCI's ads are "teasers" - in effect,
commercials for a forthcoming series of commercials.

In MCI's case, none of this week's commercials actually describes
the benefits of switching to its 800 service. Instead, the ads
attempt to play off the themes of the presidential campaign, with
vague references to MCI's "agenda for change" and its plan "for
the first 100 days." In one especially strange spot that aired
during the election returns on the networks, two business  execu-
tives are seen guffawing, snorting and generally carrying on
about ... well, it's not entirely clear what's so funny.

 "This is a campaign that will evolve," promised Ron Berger, the
creative director at MCI's ad agency, Messner Vetere Berger
McNamee Schmetter of New York, which conceived of and shot the
ads in one month. "We're trying to get people to sit up on Elec-
tion Night and look at things and be provoked by them."

 Berger, whose agency also produces ads for Volvo and Coppertone,
said MCI's commercials have to be provocative and challenging  to
compete with giant rival AT&T.

 In the fierce and seemingly never-ending ad wars among long-
distance companies, AT&T spends about $2.5 billion on its market-
ing - roughly twice MCI's outlay.

 Unless you need an 800 number, the ads don't necessarily have to
make sense. The campaign, after all, takes a mass-market approach
to reaching a narrow group of consumers: business"We're trying to
get people to sit up ... and look at things ..."< -  Ron Berger
of MCI's ad agency customers - or at least those people who are
the "influencers" within a company about telecommunications deci-
sions, said Timothy Price, president of MCI's newly formed busi-
ness services division.

 The company estimates that small  and medium-sized businesses
spend some $18 billion a year for all kinds of telecommunications
services.

 But are extreme close-ups of somber-faced business executives
any way to capture a market? To MCI's credit, few people seemed
to have missed its new ads; on the other hand, not everyone loved
them.  That the ads generated word of mouth around the office wa-
ter cooler is proof that MCI "broke through" on some level, said
Jay Chiat, chairman of ad agency Chiat/Day/Mojo Inc.

 Chiat, whose agency created the equally dark "Lemmings" spot for
Apple Computer Inc. in 1986, said the first reaction among a
group he was watching TV with was: " 'What's going on?' People
forget that advertising is a redundant thing. If you are intri-
gued, you will keep looking at it, trying to figure out what the
message is.

 "You don't have to like advertising, but you do have to be pro-
voked by it."

 But Bob Garfield, who reviews ads for Advertising Age magazine,
found MCI's spots "so grossly melodramatic for the situation at
hand as to be laughable ... You'd think the guys in the spot were
discussing the pros and cons of ethnic cleansing, not how cheaply
you can dial Memphis."<02:11 11-05C9999-----

Copyright 1992, The Washington Post.  This story is from the
Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar-
chived or redistributed.

For more information, send-email to American Cybercasting Cor-
poration (usa@AmeriCast.COM)