BT pushes right buttons in ISDN

Just how does one make a press ad for a service grab attention when it’s for something as amorphous as an ISDN system?

BT’s agency has approached the problem in the classical manner by focusing upon the benefits of the service rather than its features. To have done otherwise must have been a great temptation; for a firm full of techies not to bore us senseless with the small detail of digital technology shows genuine understanding of the simple but overlooked fact that people buy solutions.

So BT’s creatives took a few steps back. And what did they see? Not an invisible stream of digitised information travelling four times the speed of an ordinary phone line, that’s for sure. Well, not initially at any rate. No, they saw a grubby, battle-hardened motorcycle courier astride a rusty and clapped-out Kawasaki GT550. Since Noah was a lad, we’ve all been running our work around town in a leaky old top box, bungee strapped above the back wheel as it bounces between the pot holes. A marketing tradition.

Now there’s another way, says BT. Faster, better, cheaper. Hey – I forgot how it works BT, you’ve pushed my buttons.

Richard McCann

Michael Rines Communications

Alderton

Northamptonshire