Excellent Marketing by Verizon

As much horrible, clueless advertising as there is out there today, it is so refreshing to see a brilliant television commercial. I'm referring to the wonderful new spot from Verizon in which one girl gets a pony as a gift while her two friends get new Verizon phones. You've seen it. They seem to be running it constantly.



Bonnie Dennison, the girl who gets the pony, is marvelous. She hardly has any dialog but her looks, her expressions and her timing are fantastic. Kudos to the director for bringing out this performance! Even the look on the Verizon "Can you hear me now?" guy is priceless as he watches the horse eat the roof off the doghouse. It's just plain funny and I don't get tired of watching it. More than that, it's effective because I remember perfectly what it is for and what they are selling. That's rare today with all the clutter on TV.

The only flaw in the entire commercial is an rather inexcusable continuity error. If you notice Bonnie's hands at the start of the spot she has her arms folded and two fingers on her left hand are bandaged. At one point she switched the orientation of her folder arms and the left hand is no longer visible. Then on the next cut, it is back to its original position. I don't understand how this could happen because of how important the two bandaged fingers are to the payoff line at the end of the spot. Somebody on the production crew really dropped the ball here. Lazy and unprofessional filmmaking.

But the overall effect - brilliant! Five stars!