[...] a short parody of a misled solution to a common customer problem. Xerox just did a great job with this in their recent commercial featuring Michelin. I thought it was funny even though I didn’t [...]

nice partnership, nice ad

Thanks for this write up. I couldnt for the life of me understand this commercial. It is ridiculous for the lay man to understand so much and appreciate Xerox’s relationship with Michelin. But Xerox is indeed a great company who pioneered most inventions that are successful products today.

After seeing this ad repeatedly during US Open broadcasts last week, I was asked by both my spouse and a friend to explain it (I work for Xerox). Both assumed the people in the car were Xerox employees bothering the Michelin Man for help with accounting, which I assume is not the intended take-away! The point is that while it is an entertaining ad, the message should be clear and not require insider knowledge to interpret how Xerox is bringing value to the relationship. Another observation is that because the Michelin Man is so recognizable, the casual observer will assume it is a Michelin ad (as I did the first several viewings) and not even pick up on the Xerox message unless they are listening to the voiceover narrative at the end. A bit of a missed opportunity in my view.

This is the worst ad i have ever seen. the first few times i saw it, i thought it was a typical michelin ad. and it is not at all clear what xerox is doing. i guess the ad writers decided that they did not really want to convey any message whatsoever to the audience, which makes one question the purpose of buying advertisement space!

Thank you for all the feedback on our new Michelin commercial. As with most television commercials, we do our best to communicate a high level partnership with a global customer in a creative and engaging way. For those interested in getting more detail around how we manage Michelin’s Finance processing, check out http://www.realbusiness.com. I’m sure you’ll learn a lot new things that you never thought Xerox did!

The “Tall, Puffy Michelin Man” has a name, Bibendum. I had a difficult time finding this article because of its poor title. A better title might have been “What is Bibendum, the Michelin Man, doing in a Xerox ad?”

Beyond the title, I share the same issue as the Xerox employee (Comment 4) above. It seemed like the accountants were from Xerox and were stopping poor Bibendum from getting on with his important work. I thought that Michelin was maybe getting into business services and helping Xerox? I had to search out this article to make sense of it. It would have made more sense if some Xerox branded people showed up at the end and said something like “We’ll take it from here” and sent the car accountants away to let Bibendum get back to work. I very much like Bibendum and have a positive impression of Xerox. This advertisement lowered my impression of Xerox.

Seriously, this is the most confusing commercial in history. I have seen it about 50 times and finally decided to Google it, only to find out that nobody knew what it meant. It took a trip to xerox.com to figure out what the heck was going on. Somebody needs to be fired.

My husband and I saw this ad and tried to analyze it for about 20 minutes. We had NO idea what the Michelin guy was doing there and how he related to Xerox. Why did Xerox need his help to process their accounts? The acting was superb and the guy was hilarious: “both are important” but we still had no idea what was being advertised.

Thank you for taking time to share your views about our Michelin commercial. We do robust research and testing of each of our commercials, and I am pleased to report that the Michelin TVC was one of our strongest performers — enjoyed, effective at communicating our message and for generating future consideration of Xerox Finance& Accounting Services. That said, it is appreciated that advertising is never enjoyed or understood by 100% of viewers, and I am sorry you did not care for this commercial — hopefully you like our other commercials better. (Barbara Basney, Vice President, Xerox Global Advertising)

effective at communicating our message? – NOT AT ALL. Thougt it was a Michelin ad and some stupid finance guys disturb Bibendum because they have no clue at all. XEROX asking Michelin for help…thats the message I got. But what else should a VP comment. The money has been burned anyway…

There’s that word again “robust”. A totally meaningless word unless it’s used to described red wine. So the Michelin Man throwing tires at a gas pump (an abstract concept to begin with) is somehow about XEROX. Face it, the ad agency simply recycled a good ad and threw in a sentence about XEROX and confused everyone. Somehow their “robust” research missed that.

The only “focus group” that could have scored this ad so highly had to be Xerox insiders. After seeing it many times, replaying, analyzing, I still could not understand the annoying Xerox accountants in the car. The whole point is to be explained in the rushed voiceover at the end?
This only shows how myopic admen can be, enthralled by their creativity while losing the message.

how dumb are all of you? the ad TELLS YOU WHAT IT IS ABOUT! it’s about Xerox freeing michelin to do the important tasks at hand rather than being interrupted by office mgmt details, IT’S IN THE AD COPY! Geez. spoon fed generation, take a bow.

I am trying to figure out who the actors in the car are. They look familiar. Anybody know? I think the woman might be Catherine Dent from The Shield?

Clearly the ad fails when it leaves ao many viewers scratching their heads as to what’s going on and what the take away is. To thank the commenter and then defensively explain what the ad was intending to convey (to those “dense” viewers who just aren’t smart enough to get it) demonstrates the real take away here — what artogance! It’s Xerox and their admen who are actually the ones who don’t “get it” – the ad misses the point that the intended message just doesn’t successfully “land”.

This ad confused my husband and me, and we have business degrees. We had no idea Xerox had those services. First things first, inform us that the services exist. Xerox and financial management services? Who knew? The gas monster is very distracting. Whoever approved this ad knew what they wanted to say, but did not view it objectively. Fail!