Not sure what the recent fascination with Serena Williams is all about. She's 40, well past her prime athletically, is constantly injured these days, and hasn't won a Grand Slam since the 2017 Australian Open (which began in January of that year -- when Barack Obama was still in the White House!)
There wasn't this much coverage or interest in Serena fifteen or so years ago when she was at the top of her game, dominating women's tennis and winning tournaments on a regular basis. So why do we now seemingly see her everywhere, including this commercial for Direct TV? Click here to see see what I mean.
If you're like me, you probably noticed that somehow, the Amazonian powers that Serena gains not only transform her into Wonder Woman, they also enable the moles on her face to travel back and forth indiscriminately from the right side (0:14) to the left side (0:18). This phenomenon is evident no matter which cut of the commercial you're watching (albeit with different timestamps.)
So did someone somehow inadvertently flip the image and no one noticed until it was too late?... Was the image flipped purposely in order to solve some larger production dilemma, thereby leaving no choice but to have Serena's moles appear to bounce back and forth?... I guess we'll never know. But this happenstance (however it came to be) deserves to examined.
I seriously doubt this blunder wasn't caught in time. You're telling me, the agency's creative leads, the commercial's director, the video editors and production people involved, the account execs, and the client (i.e., all of the big-wigs at AT&T) -- they all missed this and only realized the error after the spot began airing?... Doubtful.
So the question is, how could the company choose to let the spot go to market like this? I mean, wasn't there a meeting where they weighed the pros and cons of such a decision?
I can honestly say that I have been in those meetings -- where the advertising agency, after days, weeks or months of production, presents finished creative to the client company. "Last look"-type meetings where the client signs off on said creative, and I can state unequivocally that there is absolutely no acceptable explanation for why something like this shouldn't be fixed... None.
You spend all of that money producing this commercial; you pay Serena; you pay John McEnroe; you pay the costumer (likely the same one used for Gal Gadot for the WW movies) and have a custom-fitted duplicate outfit made for Serena; and you don't want to spend the cash or take the time and effort to make the spot right by fixing the moles issue?
The result of not doing so is that we're left with a commercial that's something that AT&T and its ad agency should be ashamed of. Even moreso after so many like me have called them out on Twitter.
Look, replacing TV ads and similar creative already trafficked into market can be tricky and expensive, but AT&T can certainly afford it. So the only explanation is that decision makers there believed the public wouldn't notice or care -- and/or that the mistake (as obvious and amateurish as it is) for whatever reason wasn't worth correcting.
But if AT&T doesn't have enough respect for its brand, for its customers, and for the simple notion of owning up to your own sloppy (or otherwise corner-cutting created) mistakes, then the company really don't deserve your business.
And as for the advertising and marketing agencies involved in creating the spot -- which include Hearts & Science, a division of Omnicom Group -- they should all be rightfully mocked for their negligence and for being complicit.
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