A Qwest for Mediocrity

For anyone who has seen the new Qwest commercials on TV, you might start to wonder, "have I seen this before?" You have. Qwest tries to bank off of the likeability of UPS's white board spots with their sand drawings, but lead me to wonder, what makes this drawing approach appealing to small and large businesses?



Yes, the drawings are pretty, but saying that Qwest understands that different things are necessary for different businesses is so mundane. EVERYONE knows that a doughnut maker, car maker and wildlife foundation have different communication needs, so the fact that a business specializing in communication understands that is quite expected and obvious.

Don't get me wrong, the ads are visually stunning, much as the UPS whiteboard ads were, however, the message behind the art direction is blah. Everytime I see these ads I will think, "Aaah... this reminds me of that cool white board guy!" Not to mention, the UPS drawings in their ads made sense with what the product was and made us remember the brand (the brown marker= logo color, and the "Delivery Intercept" commercial even made up the UPS logo). If you turned off the audio, you would still understand what was going on. Not so with Qwest.

In fact, it took me over half an hour to remember which company these ads are even for. YIKES! I guess replication isn't always the best strategy...