If I covered up the Sky logo on this ad, below, who would you say it was from?
BT are mentioned four times: once in the main image, and three times in the copy beneath it.
How many times can you mention ‘the other company’ in one ad??
Nothing says ‘we’re really bothered about our rivals’ quite like mentioning them so much in your own ad that you forget to mention yourself (bar your logo).
When I first looked at the ad, I thought that it was actually advertising a ‘1 year contract with BT’ (rather than showing the words on a padlock to imply ‘locked into a deal with BT’… too obscure). I also thought the ad was saying that ’17 Champions League match weeks’ was a good thing.
The body copy also prattles on about BT; ‘If you join BT TV and BT Unlimited Broadband just to get BT Sport…’ (only the word ‘just’ makes you realise the copy isn’t quite selling BT).
Only in the very last line of the body copy does the ad actually look to take a swipe at BT (a crude tactic), and make a point; ‘So it could cost you over £300 to get it.’
This ad is an absolute dog’s dinner, from start to finish… and it must’ve cost a fortune to place: double-page spread, inside front cover, in The Metro (and other papers?).
What a waste. What a mess.