As was pointed out upthread, they have metrics. The Dell Dude is selling computers, just not to you. If the ads weren’t working, they’d stop them. I do have a question for people who boycott compaies based on bad commercials: How do you know when to stop? Say you don’t like the Geico Caveman. How do you know if they’ve stopped running them, or if they have several campaigns going at once (in fact, Geico does)? How much attention do you have to pay to commercials to make this work?
Again - when was the last time you saw the Dell Dude?
Yes, they have metrics. Exactly why I stop buying from them. If I continue to buy from them, I contribute to the metric that makes them think their advert is working. When I stop, I contribute to the metric that makes them understand it isn’t.
How much attention do I have to pay to see when they stop using a commercial? None whatsoever. Their job is to sell to me. If they have lost me as a target they are failing. Their job is then to try to get me back.
I also have a problem with advertisers that go out of their way to make a memorable commercial, but fail to land their brand name.
A few of the biggies are Trucks, Cell Phone Providers, and Beer.
I can name a half dozen commercials for each of the categories but I couldn’t for the life of me tell you what brand they were for.
“Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?”- I couldn’t tell you if this was Sprint, Cingular, Verizon, T-Mobile???
Life size rock-em sock-em robot punches the front of a truck without making a dent. - GMC? Dodge? Nissan? I don’t really know.
Or the truck commercial with the Aerosmith song - What brand was it for again?
Bouncing beer bottles off a rubber floor- I like this one. Probably Budwiser or Miller?? Is it even for beer? I couldn’t tell you. But it was funny when the dog bounced out of the house.
There’s one notable one like that playing recently, and I can’t even say remotely what’s being sold, although my GF and I usually laugh like loons when it plays:
A cute girl IM’s a cheesecake photo of herself to a co-worker, which quickly spreads through the office. Just the sound of it cracks me up, and the way her face changes is priceless. The product? Uhh…
I thought he was still around. That’s why I ask, how do you know when to stop boycotting them? I in fact have a Dell Optiplex GX200 that I bought secondhand. And I used to hate the Dell Dude. Another question that occurs to me: How much did you hate Packard-Bell’s commercials?
Naw, he was phased out after two years and 9 comercials - but not as far as I can tell - because people hated him. They slowly started the spots with the Dell Interns right around the time they phased him out and then they let him go when he was busted for pot. There was some speculation at the time that Dell was fearful that they were alienating their corporate customers and that is why they were replacing him with the Dell Interns, but Dell never made a statement to that regard - it was speculation. Prior to the Dell Dude I used to buy a new Dell every year. Top of the line, 5000 dollar machine. Most memory, biggest hard drive, biggest monitor, everything. I was a consultant and it allowed me to buy those toys with pre-tax dollars. I so detested the Dell Dude that I started buying from competiters and then once I stopped consulting I scaled back to only buying a mid-line every two years.
I don’t know that I can think of any of PB’s commercials.