A Creative Communications Agency

Well, it has been a while since there was a major complaint about an ad so here is the latest creation that has twisted the stick in the butts of certain groups.

Verizon Wireless has a new ad out for their LG Dare phone (watch it here) that shows a young man taking a chance, just to touch the new phone that is located in a junkyard being guarded by two pit-bulls who look like they want to bite his face off. Animal rights groups, including the ASPCA and PETA, are furious over the fact that the pit-bulls are shown in a bad light as aggressive dogs. Even though there are still major cities in this country of ours that don’t allow individuals to own the historically aggressive breed, Miami being one.

From what the complaints seem to be most upset about is that the dogs used in the ads were pit-bulls, so if they were dobermans or labs this wouldn’t have been a problem? The main message is that strange dogs, no matter where they are, could be dangerous. Many of us learned that we should stay away from a strange dog as a child because they could be dangerous. So that is what the ad seems to be implying, these are dangerous, junkyard dogs that could bite your face off, and Verizon dares you to touch the phone.

The people making these complaints just want to complain. There are individuals and small groups in our society that thinks it is their responsibility to protect everyone else. Give it a rest. This is one of the most annoying parts of working in any type of public creative medium. Someone will always be offended by everything; and people think they can go after advertisers because there is an idea of controlling the profitability and financial status of a company. If someone gets upset with a piece of art, the painter isn’t going to take it as bad as a company who could lose millions of dollars.

One thing that the complaints have done is drawn more attention to the ad; way to go. Your little, petty complaints have just added millions of dollars in exposure to Verizon and the basis of your complaint is weak at best. Get over yourself and stop ruining things for the rest of us.

I could be completely wrong though, is the ad “dispicable” in your opinion?