Facebook (NASDAQ:
FB
) has produced a
new
advertisement
to celebrate its milestone of acquiring one billion users
worldwide. And it starts with this message:
"Chairs. Chairs are made so that people can sit down and take
a break. Anyone can sit on a chair, and if the chair is large
enough they can sit down together and tell jokes or make up
stories or just listen."
According to
Wikipedia
, chairs are commonly supported by four legs and have a back.
Without a back, a chair is known as a stool. Facebook cannot be
faulted for leaving out these details -- the ad was only 90
seconds long. However, the social networking giant did use the ad
to inform its users of the following:
"Chairs are for people."
Wikipedia
concurs with this assessment.
"And that is why chairs are like Facebook."
Umm, chairs are like what?
"Doorbells, airplanes, bridges."
They are like a lot of things, apparently.
"These are things people use to get together so that they can
open up and connect about ideas and music and other things that
people share."
Most experts would agree that bridges and airplanes allow people
to "get together." But when did doorbells turn into a portal for
meetings and social interactions?
"Dance floors, basketball, a great nation. A great nation is
something people build so they can have a place where they
belong."
At this point it sounds as if Facebook is about to promote a
national sporting event.
"The universe. It is vast and it is dark and makes us
wonder if we are alone. So maybe the reason we make all of
these things is to remind ourselves that we are not."
And there it is -- the powerful closing statement that is
meant to suck viewers all into the experience and make them
believe that Facebook is the greatest and most wonderful company
ever built.
While the rest of the commercial could be described as
unintentionally comical (
Gizmodo
referred to is as the "dumbest video we've seen in a while"), the
end attempts to bring it all together for a grand-scale finale.
The problem is that the finale feels a little too much like the
numerous ads
from Google (NASDAQ:
GOOG
) and Apple (NASDAQ:
AAPL
), many of which have attempted to end on a dramatic note. They
also end with a soft fade-in of the company's logo, a style that
Facebook has now employed.
This is cheap and out of place, to say the least. While
Facebook may want to believe that it is as powerful to the world
-- and as beloved by consumers -- as Google and Apple, the social
network has a long way to go before it can achieve that level of
success. It would take years for a new search engine to surpass
Google, and while Samsung may sell more smartphones (overall)
than Apple, it may never be able beat the iPhone on a per-unit
basis.
These successes were not achieved overnight. They were
acquired through years of hard work. In Apple's case, the company
had to take a dive -- and lose all relevance -- before finding
innovation in an MP3 player that guided the firm to where it is
today.
Facebook must endure similar hardships and invest billions of
dollars (and years of hard work) before it can truly compare
itself to the other tech giants of the world. Until then, there
is not much to Like about this new ad campaign.
Follow me
@LouisBedigianBZ
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