Advertising Absurdity

I nearly spewed my green tea at breakfast when I caught Cisco Systems' new full page ad in the Washington Post. "ONE DAY THEY WILL LOOK BACK AND SAY, 'IF ONLY EVERY COMPANY RAN LIKE THE GOVERNMENT.'" reads the ad's tag line. No doubt it got the attention of government procurement guys, but really, there should be some sort of prior warning before someone comes across something that preposterous early in the morning. Next Cisco will be talking about square circles, or proving a negative.

Comments

[Jean Bart]

Another absurdity:

NEW YORK (CNN) -- A pilot asked passengers on an American Airlines flight to raise their hands if they were Christians, telling them they were "crazy" if they weren't, some of the passengers said Monday.

The airline is investigating reports about Friday's Flight 34 from Los Angeles, California, to New York, a company spokesman said.

American Airlines said that if the incident were true it "would be against our policy."

In a statement, the airline said, "It falls along the lines of a personal level of sharing that may not be appropriate for one of our employees to do while on the job."

Airline spokesman Tim Wagner said the pilot denies using the word "crazy." He told the airline he recently had returned from a mission trip and was encouraging people to use the 4 1/2-hour flight to speak with passengers about their relationship with God, Wagner said. The pilot's name has not been released.

"American Airlines apologizes if anyone was made to feel uncomfortable by the comments of this pilot," Wagner said.

Some of the passengers said the pilot's remarks made them uneasy.

Passenger Jen Dorsey told CNN's "American Morning," "We were just at the beginning of our flight. The pilot came on to greet everyone and give his comments for the morning, and he said he'd recently been on a mission trip, and he'd like all the Christians to please raise their hands."

Also on "American Morning," passenger Karla Austin said, "He said, 'If you are a Christian, raise your hand.' He said, 'If you are not, you're crazy.' "

Dorsey nodded her head in agreement that the pilot had called non-Christians "crazy."

Another passenger recounted a similar experience in an interview with WCBS-TV in New York. Amanda Nelligan told the station the pilot said those who did not raise their hands were "crazy."

Austin said no passengers raised their hands.

The pilot asked passengers to look around at each other and use the flight wisely or "just sit back and watch the movie," Dorsey said.

Airline spokesman Wagner declined to say whether the pilot has been relieved of duty while an investigation is under way. The man, a senior pilot with the airline, did not fly again over the weekend, Wagner said.

The spokesman also declined to say whether the pilot had been scheduled to fly this week.

The result of the airline's investigation will not be made public because it is an internal matter, Wagner said, adding it will be "handled internally according to American Airlines procedure."

Passengers were "shocked," said Austin. Some reached for their mobile phones and others used the on-flight phones, she said.

"Just given the history of what's happened on planes in this country, anything can happen at this point. So we weren't sure if something was going to happen at takeoff, if he was going to wait until JFK (John F. Kennedy) to do something," Austin said. "But there was definitely implication there that we felt that something was going to happen."

Passengers complained to the flight attendants, who relayed their concerns to the cockpit and who then reassured them they had nothing to worry about on the flight, Austin said.

Attendants also told passengers they had contacted airline officials about the matter, she said.

About 45 minutes into the flight, the pilot apologized -- but his apology focused on the crew, not the passengers, Dorsey said.

"He came on and said, 'I want to apologize for my comments earlier. I think I really threw the flight crew off a little bit, and they are getting a lot of flack for the things I said. So I want to apologize to my flight crew,' " she said.

Wagner said the pilot offered to speak after the flight with anyone who wanted to discuss his comments.

On her way out, Austin said she told him that "he should be ashamed of himself."

"He just nodded and looked to the ground, and that was it," she said.

[PapayaSF]

Speaking of odd ads, there was one in the San Francisco Chronicle last week for a fundraiser for an organization working against violence against women. If you contribute enough money, you get to hobnob with the featured speaker: Bill Clinton! I guess James Brown and Phil Spector weren't available....

[Jean Bart]

PapayaSF,

A bit like the Khmer Rouge "trying" Pol Pot.

[name]

Hey, if I could force people to give me money at gunpoint, I'd have a pretty nice business too. Maybe they're on to something.

Not that I think taxes are theft or anything (they're non-consensual, yes, but I like having an army protecting me), but it's creepy to see Cisco's desires stated this way.

[MJ]

Let's see, the government is bureaucratically bloated, deeply in debt, running at a heavy loss, and is skimming cash for operating expenses off the pension fund. This is Cisco's ideal business model? Time to dump that stock, I think!

[Jose Ortega y Gasset]

I'm normally impressed with Bailey, though this comment leaves something to be desired from the man of science. "Government" is about as descriptive as "business," which is to say not at all. There are small units of government that are models of efficiency as compared to some large corporation. Anyone who thinks fraud, waste and abuse is sole franchise of government simply has not worked in the private sector. As for Baily, I hope he will use a tiny bit of bandwidth specifying "federal" as the brand of government he wouldn't smoke.

[MALAK]

Dilly: BITE ME!

[Ryan Jensen]

Actually, I think the Cisco ad is quite clever. If you read into it further, they're saying that people in the future will look back at the great way the government runs AFTER they use Cisco products. Remember, this ad was in the WaPo, which has a majority of readers in public service. Cisco was obviously targetting this demographic, as does nearly every technology ad on the Metro.

[Douglas Fletcher]

But all my best ideas come after 4:21.

[Douglas Fletcher]

And besides, screw the East Coast.

[Warren G.]

THE WEST COAST IS THE BEST COAST!

[Kevin Carson]

Jose Ortega y Gasset,

Government has a captive clientele, and can fund its operations at gunpoint. I've got to admit, it's pretty hard to fail with a business model like that.

But it's also hard to imagine how any unit of government could be run efficiently, by private sector models. How can you even tell whether an actor is "successful" at providing services that willing consumers want, at a price they are willing to pay, when the market price system is replaced by armed force?

[Dilly]

What the hell is going on around here? Lunacy, thread hijack on the very first damned comment, no links, smoking the government, talking bunnies, etc. There should be a curfew on H&R, coinciding with 4:20 on the east coast.