Ever since Yahoo introduced its "It's y!ou" campaign last September, it seems like we've been getting "you-ed" up the wazoo in advertising. Granted, technology is having a customizable moment and the use of the y-word reflects this. But there's more than one layer of irony in multiple advertisers attempting to target millions of people with messages about their individuality.
It reminds me of that crucial scene in Monty Python's Life of Brian, in which Brian, the alleged savior, is standing on his balcony shooing the worshipful crowd away. He wants them to think for themselves. "You're all individuals," he says. "You're all different." A hand is raised at the back of the crowd and a lone squeaky voice says, "Er, I'm not."
Maybe it's a pipe dream, but I would hope my identity is a fluid thing that keeps adapting and growing, not something that can be locked in by any number of marketers riding the personalization wave. Take mobile phone marketers: T-Mobile recently sold its myTouch phones with the line, "100% you," and now, in its major debut in the U.S -- via Deutsch/LA -- the Chinese phone manufacturer HTC is using the phrase, "It's you."
HTC is the world's biggest seller of smart phones. For years, it provided them to Sprint and T-Mobile, but never marketed itself as a brand in the U.S. Now it's marketing its phones, built on Android, the Google operating system, under its own name.
Actually, it's unfortunate that HTC's is the third campaign with "you" to break, because otherwise, it has a lot to recommend it.
I'm no fan of anthem commercials, which these are. (In fact, one is called "Anthem.") I understand agencies do them because marketers are myopically in love with their brands. They're also good for rousing the sales force and easier to get right than spots that are highly conceptual or contain subtle, well-written jokes. But anthems seem about as old-school McEighties as the already quasi-dinosaurish TV commercial can get. Let's take 60 seconds to bathe in brand essence a la 1987, with images that move to the literal words of the music, shall we?
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