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AOL turns to 'toon appeal
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October 7, 1996: 2:06 p.m. ET
The online service is hoping the Jetsons will help keep customers hooked
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) -- America Online is trying hard to create a brand personality for its service, especially since it's losing customers almost as quickly as they sign up.
The company is hoping that it's latest ad campaign -- prime time TV commercials set to the theme song from the popular, futuristic Jetsons -- will do the trick.
In an interview on CNNfn's The Media Show, Executive Creative Director Eric McClellan and Creative Director Shalom Auslander, both of TBWA Chiat Day, told CNNfn about AOL's struggle to keep it's subscriber base, and how this particular ad theme could help.
The aim of the commercial, according to both McClellan and Auslander, was to de-mystify the online service, make it seem more non-threatening and non-elitist. Most people, they said, find technology daunting, and tend to keep it at a distance for fear of blowing up their computers.
"AOL has been sending out disk after disk after disk after disk," McClellan said. "Finally we want to give people a reason to say, 'You know, I think I understand what these people are all about -- I'm going to put in the disk.'"
McClellan and Auslander came up with the warm and fuzzy Jetsons idea because it appeals to the Baby Boom generation, who want to provide both their kids and themselves with the latest technology.
"The Jetsons was a story about a family," McClellan said. "It wasn't a story about technology. It wasn't a story about the future. It was just a family, like a next-door family, who happened to live in the far-flung future where they had jet packs and push-button everything."
McClellan said the new version of the software was also a reason for the 30- and 60-second spots.
"Now that they really have something to talk about -- they have 3.0 -- they can quantify it, so it's faster, quicker, smarter, cheaper," he said.
AOL needs to convince people that the online service fits into their lives, just like microwaves and cellular phones, Auslander said. The company is also hoping to retain the hundreds of thousands of subscribers who sign on, but don't stay on as members.
"I think people were going on with probably either the wrong expectations or no expectations," Auslander said. "There's just this buzz out there, and then (they say) 'Well, my life hasn't changed. I've been on for three minutes, and my life isn't that much better."
The runner up to the Jetsons theme song was, oddly enough, the theme from "Lost in Space" -- not exactly the mood that the staggering online service wanted to convey.
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