A few days before Mother’s Day, Twitter released a great dose of self-deprecating humor with its ad urging users to get off Twitter and call their mothers. The video depicts a man typing a tweet to his mom wishing her a happy “Mom’s Day, LOL,” while the narrator screams at him to close the app and actually dial her number.
It was very refreshing to see that social networks understand and take full responsibility for changing our society and making us addicted to tweeting, updating, posting, tagging and hashtagging. Among many solutions to getting out of the filter bubble, Eli Pariser mentions that corporations themselves have the power to change algorithms and loosen the limits on personalization. While this seems like a great idea, I was skeptical about its effectiveness: attracting more users would generate higher revenues after all. This ad proves me wrong; Twitter understands its ability to “zombify” our society to constantly use the network and also has equal power to “un-zombify” us. I’m not sure if ads like these would produce long term results, but its existence alone put a smile on my face.
When I read the small write-up under the video though, my smile kind of disappeared. When you search #MothersDay on Twitter, you wil apparently stumble upon a video from Google+ prompting users to take advantage of the service to send electronic “Happy LOL Mom’s Day” type of messages to their mothers. So now it’s just confusing….which ad do we trust!? Are electronic messages silly and impersonal or are they the new “Hallmark Cards”!?
Watch the Twitter video: http://mashable.com/2013/05/10/twitter-mothers-day/
In the world we live in today ads are everywhere. We are exposed to over 3000 ads on average each day. I think that just simply getting your attention is all an ad campaign can hope for. I have seen countless ads and commercials in which I do not even know what is being sold. Twitter was successful in mocking the world in which we live. We admit that we are obsessed with present day devices and technology and can laugh about it. However, we seem to be pretty powerless so maybe it is not actually that funny. Also I don’t think that many people would be sending their mom’s a tweet. Although just about everyone spend their day tweeting about their mothers and mother’s day.
What is socially acceptable? I think we have gotten to a point where the advocates for proper maners and etiquette have realized that they were fighting a losing battle and simply gave up. I was one myself and still speak up from time to time but I became more and more frustrated with this impersonal world in which we live.
The main purpose of advertisements is to create a promotional platform for consumers to become knowledgeable of the product or service which would lead to obtaining revenue. Companies will do anything and everything to get people to pay that extra dollar for a product or service, even if it’s considered unethical. But ethics is a whole other topic. The fact that Google+ is promoting sending a tweet to mothers on Mother’s Day is rather amusing. I don’t think anyone in their write mind would greet their mothers a “Happy Mothers Day” through twitter or through text unless distance is an issue.
This year I decided to make my mom’s present a little different. I did not use technology nor did I purchase anything. I decided to be a little creative and go back to our good old days. I wrote her a simple letter. I wrote it in pen and on a paper. She appreciated that gesture much more because she knew I took the time from my day and actually sat down and wrote everything I was feeling. When she read it, she had the biggest smile and her face, and although she denied it I know that she was getting teary eyed. That made me ecstatic and from now on I don’t think I will use any social media, any digital cards or even Hallmark cards. Sometimes we need to go back to our roots, prior to technology and realize what matters to us and use that in our daily lives.