...of the agency? Really?

Yay Hazel - high five to you for raising this! I frickin hate these ads and have commented as such on another of your blog posts before. You can just see Scratchies selling the client on the fact that they've got Annah and Zoe to appeal to the female audiece. Um, hello - Zoe who? (I think she was on Xena? A show largely watched by guys scoping out the chicks in leather?) And as for Annah, well maybe a small portion of Dio mothers who wear her Trelise-wannabe garb mght know who she is. And everything over-laid by blokey, techie, art direction. Bleuch. My mobile is about communicating with friends, colleagues, family. It's warm, it's fuzzie, it's chatty. As crap as their customer service may be, Voda is a lot better at portraying this to me through their brand advertising than anything Telecom have ever churned out.

I love everything about those ads except for the little short bloke. What I dont understand is why they dropped a woman in the ocean in a container. Surely they could have used one of the boats from the other ad? Am I thick or what?

iPhone should be on the "cool wall". What is an XT anyway?

Damn straight Hazel, as a woman they don't appeal to me at all - the entire content, even with the women in it, is very blokey and man-central - aka dropping off onto a shipping container or standing on top of a mountain. And why on earth would any woman want to use her mobile in the mountains of Angola anyway? What woman wants to go there for a European getaway? I bet Annah prefers the Champs Elysees like the rest of us. All I think about when I watch those ads is the enormous amount of money wasted that they will probably recoup by charging us more. If only they had used Dan Carter in a pair of jockeys....*sigh*

I find your column offensive. As a man i find the XT ads to be drab and boring beyond belief. By implying that all men must like these ads you're actually giving Telecom a 49% of the population success rate.

This campaign will be succesful because Telecom have plastered New Zealand, not because of any great stylish campaign (although it does look expensive?)

I hate vodafone ads almost as much, with their so painfully-hip indie music and beautiful people swinging in swings and generally being phoneless and free. *sobs*

But they win unfortunately. Mobile are for kids - the coolness and hipness flows upward and outward through the social sphere from there.

15-23 is the market, disproportionately female.

Telecom have just missed shooting the side of a barn - instead choosing to focus on some kind of 'pragmatist' speed angle. The problem is, the network is basically identical in speed to vodafone. so that wont do.

Outside of this supposed 'sensible' demographic, businessmen want to be hip. Mothers want to be hip. Supermodels want to be hip. Bogans want to be (vaguely) hip. Skaters - hip. Surfers? Tweens? Lawyers and accountants - hip.

They all want to be 15-23, male or female, and will buy products that at least make them feel as such.

sad but true *sobs*

Vodafone (shudder) 1 Telecom 0.

I'm a bloke... admittedly not a petrol head...but I dont get the advertising either.

Watching some bloke send a text while watching a speed boat zip around.... oh, look, the network is faster. Huh?

I was actually surprised that given all the hype the guy seems to stand there for a while waiting to send his message.

Given Telecom's hype you would think the XT network came with 2 dozen beer, a Nikki Watson calendar, a chainsaw and couple of laps around Pukekohe with Greg Murphy.

So some bloke who presents a car show has been paid to say "Wow" at the XT network.... um... will he still be around when we are trying to send a friggin message on a delapidated network... or should we just say "WWWoooooooowwwww!!!""

skeeds - don't worry about the multiple posting, check the geography .... I'm sure the mountains are in Andorra .....

The idea is rubbish. The tone is from 1990. Not only is Hammond irrelevant to women, but teenagers don't even know who he is (quite high users of mobiles I reckon). Saatchi's dish up yet another average campaign for Telecom, and spend so much on it that it will have some impact regardless of the rubbish creative. Until Telecom halve their marketing spend Saatchis will get away with it.

So your buying decissions are based on TVC. Oh, how womanly is that.

What, no-one coming to Telecom's aide on this column?

I agree with the column, the guy is a twit and I change channels when the ad comes on.

But look at all these comments and not one saying Telecom has it right. Unusual.

What's the betting there's some connection with a top dog at T who's a mate of the wee twit...

Does Telecom think about Saatchis:
Practically
Insane
To
Continue
Here?

and we all need a job, even Hamster. So, its great he's got one, no worries. And means he'll maybe visit NZ again. all good.

But I gotta agree with Hazel on this one, the ad campaign doesn't engage women, and it doesn't engage men. The range test was, as Hammond would say, 'pathetic'. A woman was involved, the lovely lady did her part great - but most lads and lasses don't go so far off the map that they call a water taxi; or, of they are off the chart, its not in Auckland all the time. How about a real test , Telecom ? Can XT work from the middle of Milford Sound ? doubt it....

Then the speed test was interesting - but not enlightening, as the fundamental data transfer problem is software driven, and not even phone hardware can get around fundamental encryption algorithmic delay time. A pxt is just about as quick.

So - male and female tech heads don't get engaged. We like Hamster fine - but the product leaves us a bit cold.

Oldest story in the world, turned on its head - great campaign, not terribly different product.

Thanks Hazel, you make great points, keep up the good work.

This would have been a better approach. The trick, friends, is to not take yourself too seriously:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mudOonoGK_U

Yeah - and Colin Meads knew a lot about selling Bonds for Provincial Finance too! "Solid as I reckon"

Perhaps
It
Takes
Creative
High-Ground?

Clients get the advertising they deserve. Both Voda and Telecom get awful try hard work, absolutely lacking in sincerity. But does anyone really care?

Holy carp, I've been whinging about this for weeks - as a woman in IT I find it incredible that they have so isolated a tiny fraction of their core audience!

And as for that stupid ad with the boat and how fast they can send a pic from the phone - what a pile of rubbish.

to the commenter above, you are right, women watch Top Gear because they like Richard Hammond. (I include myself in this category, he's surprisingly sexy for an extremely short man.)
This just makes the Telecom ads all the more criminal, because they hired someone who COULD have been good, from both a female and male perspective, and ruined it.
Does anyone know what Hammond got paid???

2.05 has totally nailed it. When I first saw that Hammond was going to fronting I was stoked, because he's the Best thing on Top Gear. But when I saw the actual campaign my heart sank. It reminded me of Bill Murray in Lost in Translation. For creatives nothing rankles like a missed opportunity on a huge budget. And I think that's why this campaign has attracted such vitriol. That and the fact that everyone hates Telecom, and most ad people despise Saatchi's, heaven knows why.

Hazel, not everything that gets advertised on TV needs to represent a female point of view. I know you've grown up believing that the female of the species has an unwritten right to dictate learning styles, advertising perspectives, and generally bemoan men in print in a way no man is allowed to do, but the reality is that this campaign is not aimed at you and your jaffa, latte, sex-in-the-city, Ponsonby Rd pals. It's aimed at business decision makers, of which some are women but most are men. And for business people who need a mobile network to add value to their business, speed is a very big thing. So although I like Top Gear, I'm not a fanatic, and Hammond, May or Clarkson are equally capable of delivering this basic message. Whether it works for you is frankly immaterial. Just like it is immaterial whether or not SJP can sell hair products to me: I'm not the audience.

The writer of this needs to take a lesson in journalism, what utter crap trying to pass it off as sexist - Typical Dim witted Feminist. Maybe if they had done their homework they'd find out that not all males like these ads. whether or not Zoe and whoever are "supposedly" being submissive. the fact is these adds are just rubbish, it's just a shame for Richard Hammond that he has put his face to them.

Hazel, a bit of research will go a long way.

I so embarassed by the dickhead who keeps typing in anagrams - P I T C H. I am completely neutral on Saatchi, don't love the ads, but honestly...has someone let their 8 year old onto the NBR site or is that dickhead for real?

I'm embarrassed that 06:56 can't spell embarrassed, and that he or she doesn't know what an anagram is. Anagram = rearrangement of letters in a word or phrase to form another. For example, Hazel Phillips = Zap hellish lip. And as for whether or not Telecom should consider another agency, Put it to CEO himself, I say.

Allow me to nudge this towards 50 posts... I am not completely neutral on Saatchis and I agree that they're ripping their paying clients off by selling them less than good work. Having Kevin Roberts on the board (even if his sister is no longer head of Telecom HR) will only go so far. To paraphrase some presidential candidate or other, it' s the advertising, stupid. And this advertising is.