Episode 160 - AT&T Sound of Silence Ad Reviewed by Fanatics, Inc. and Paramount
AT&T’s latest ad is all about their partnership with Gallaudet University in creating a helmet that enhances on-field communication for student athletes who use American Sign Language.
“Sound of Silence,” chosen for us by Contagious, sells an experience and creates a positive brand association for the telecoms company. But is it the tip of the iceberg for a bigger campaign? And how effective is it on its own?
Our guests Adam Lock, VP, Creative Director at Fanatics, Inc., and Leo Hunt, Manager, Social Media Analytics at Paramount share their thoughts with Dan Moseley in the latest episode - watch it and tell us what you think!
Episode 160 - AT&T Sound of Silence Ad Reviewed by Fanatics, Inc. and Paramount
Transcript
This is automatically generated, so it’s not 100% accurate.
Dan Moseley 0:00
Welcome to Advertisers Watching Ads, the weekly show where we invite brands to review other brands' ads.
Introducing this week's guests, we have...
Adam Lock 0:24
My name is Adam Lock. I am VP here, Creative Director over social at Fanatics.
Leo Hunt 0:30
Hey, I am Leo Hunt. I lead all the social insights and analytics for Nick International over at Paramount.
Dan Moseley 0:37
Brilliant. This week's ad we are reviewing, it's from AT&T. It's called Sound of Silence, and we will play it right now.
We need to give this ad a review. So on three, two, one... Oh, three on the dot. All right. Perfect. Okay. So what are your first reactions?
Leo Hunt 1:56
It's selling an experience, in my opinion. It's diagnosing the issue. These deaf people are needing of something to enhance their ability to play because there's this problem. They're missing plays, there's miscommunication going on. AT&T is delivering this helmet to them, and it's kind of showcasing like, "Here, try this helmet." And then all of a sudden, like, it's like the golden moment they're able to perform. They're able to get on the field. All of that from start to finish is great. I just feel like it's a little dry for me in terms of like there's no sound and it's just kind of like that music playing. It's kind of you, you really have to be watching or else like when you're in the kitchen and you're like, you just have static noise and you hear TV, it's like, "What?"
Adam Lock 2:36
I think it's hard to judge the film in isolation, because I think the film itself is part of a bigger play here. Obviously, there's a commitment, there's an investment in product research, there's a product itself. And then I think that all kind of ladders to probably what is a PR campaign more than anything else. And I think the film becomes kind of the tip of the iceberg for that PR campaign, which then to me kind of gives it a very specific purpose and need. While this technology is really, really cool, it needs to tell that story to people who may not necessarily engage with that product. It's a problem solution commercial, which is the oldest type of commercial you have. It does a great job for what it's set out to do.
Leo Hunt 3:11
I think the university have like signed a waiver with the NCAA and they only gave them a certain amount of games to test this helmet out. Four? Maybe three or something out of the whole season. So, you know, looking at how many, if they improve the plays by X percent, if they improved X, Y and Z, all of our KPI, then I think that's going to give us really some support to like we need to keep pushing this and be able to have more opportunity.
Adam Lock 3:34
Yeah, there's the KPIs of like does it make the athletes perform better? But there's also probably if you can better communicate to then avoid something to be safer. That also could be an interesting one to get some data against to go like does it make the sport safer as well? It's an interesting thought.
Dan Moseley 3:49
How quickly did you guys first get into clicking and learning more? Was that something you immediately did? Was it something that could have easily been lost?
Leo Hunt 3:57
From sports media coverage that I watch, they don't ever cover ASL. So I thought this was a little bit of a joke at first. I was like, "Wait, there's colleges and football teams that actually are all 100% ASL." And I... I had no idea. So I was Googling like, Gallaudet University, and then I was like, "Oh, like they're testing out this new helmet." And I was like, "Oh, this is a thing." And then I was like, I think it's just from like ASL and like those type of communities are not necessarily broadcasted all the time on sports media and coverage, and no one's covering that. So like, there's something that was very new to me and like, I was learning a lot and I was like, "Oh, this is very interesting. I had no idea this existed."
Adam Lock 4:34
I think what's interesting is when you look at the technology, just in isolation of the film, it has real purposes for football players just in general. Like you could have done this with an NFL player doing it because sound... away crowds while you're trying to call plays is an inhibitor to being able to play football. So you could have done this with a quarterback who everyone knows, can't hear the play because the crowd's so loud. Now, I have this helmet that can help me make the play. You could have told the exact same story down that way, but I love that they went grassroots. I think that makes it more accessible to a bigger audience to understand the power of what they're doing, even though honestly, they're probably going to make more money off the technology selling it to the NFL than they are with these schools. But I loved that they went there with the narrative and the storytelling.
Dan Moseley 5:15
Was there anything that kind of when you were looking at a style in the way of a shot? Was there things that were landing in a brilliant way?
Leo Hunt 5:20
Overall, it could have benefitted from some confessionals. Especially at the beginning, kind of just like before the helmet, maybe them signing and then us having like a little caption underneath being like, you know, "I haven't been able to do X, Y and Z, and we've been like, doing really poorly and then like," kind of a post-confessional where like, one of the team players was like, "This is how it impacted me..." Kind of like give some individual spotlights from some of the team players. But that's just my take.
Adam Lock 5:45
It felt a little on the nose for me. It felt like there could have been something a little bit more unexpected of a song choice. And I think audio engineering wise, I would have loved to have a little bit more like I wish the audio gave me a little bit more of a sense of what that struggle felt like because it is about hearing impaired, and the audio really didn't help build that story when I think it could have been really powerful thing to do.
Dan Moseley 6:05
Did you get a sense of how this video left you feeling afterwards? Did it feel really natural? Did it feel a bit shoehorned in? Was there anything that kind of stuck in that kind of bigger industry conversation around purpose marketing, maybe going too far or making sure it fits right?
Adam Lock 6:20
I think it's an interesting one. I definitely think it's a better fusion of purpose and product than a lot of purpose stuff out there. There's a democratization of technology. Every time we create some new technology, it opens up access for other people, right? So it makes football open now to those with hearing impairment, right? Like if that's a true thing and only they can tell you if it's a true thing or it's a PR brief, but if it's a true thing, then I think this is a really great example of how you do purpose and products. But then if the push to make this product was just to tell a great PR story, then I kind of go back on that and it's just, we won't know. It's just what you believe.
Leo Hunt 6:54
For me, I think it was more a play on inclusivity. I think diversity, inclusion, all that, it's a very hot topic, especially with all brands right now. And I think the ASL community is a huge community that is kind of left under the rug. A lot of brands I feel like don't really attend to them. And it's about 6% of the world's population. There's around like 466 million people that are deaf and that, you know, they feel left out because they're not in the commercials. They're not getting, you know, innovative technology. So I think it does show a very positive sign for AT&T that they're kind of including this community, you know, trying to give it some innovative technology for the future moving forward.
Dan Moseley 7:36
Does this change your opinion of what AT&T are up to? Do you see them a bit more favorably because you've been exposed to this?
Leo Hunt 7:42
I'm a Verizon person. I've never touched AT&T in my life, but I think it really opens just my eyes in general to what all, like, they are kind of behind the scenes because I just, you know, I just think of them as mobile phone support and wi-fi and I'm like, I didn't realize that they were so, you know, ingrained into the sports kind of realm. So definitely a positive experience, all in all, for me.
Adam Lock 8:06
I don't know if it's going to make me change my cellphone provider. I don't think it's intended to, but I do think it helps me think about AT&T in a moment where I probably wasn't looking to. So I think, all in all, it's positive. I just think it's probably a piece of a bigger story they're trying to tell and maybe if you see enough of those pebbles, build up over time, you start to go like, I actually feel an affinity with that brand, but I don't think it's the one sledgehammer that's going to make me want to kind of like feel significantly different about AT&T. But I also didn't feel negative. I think if you thought negative about AT&T, it may help you move down the road a little bit more towards positivity, depending on your experience.
Dan Moseley 8:41
Would you have thumbs up, approved it as it currently is? Middle, maybe make some few changes and then thumbs down, didn't love it, would have done something different.
Adam Lock 8:52
I'm more here than I am here, but I think it's here just on a few craft things. I think it's great. I think it has a lot of positive impact, but I think just craftwise, I think there could be some things you could play with that maybe it just made it that next level more interesting.
Leo Hunt 9:04
Yeah. And just to add on to my thumbs up half way, I wanted some individual storytelling, like spotlight, some confessionals, just kind of like hearing from the POV of the actual players who were getting to experience the helmet and just kind of see it from pre and post, like how well their performance was impacted.
Dan Moseley 9:22
Amazing. Well, hey, it's not every day we have ads that make you want to learn more. So that is probably a good thing, I think overall. Thank you both for your time. We'll be back with more Advertisers Watching Ads next week. Thank you.
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