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A Case Study in Bad Marketing
Alcatel’s Martin Luther King Jr. Television Ad
The advertisement begins with Martin Luther King Jr. giving his famous “I have a dream” speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial in the capital of the US. As MLK says “I have a dream” the camera zooms in back of him to show the audience he is addressing from the podium. However, only a flock of birds flying away and two or three people casually walking by in the distance are there. Midway through the commercial, the Alcatel logo appears. Seconds later it disappears and reveals MLK smiling and proclaiming “I have a dream”, only this time he is surrounded by a cheering crowd.
The commercial is a complex speech situation consisting of multiple speech acts and events that can be analyzed separately and as a dynamic group. This complex speech situation is made up of simpler parts that interact to produce a message.
The commercial is composed of two channels of communication, visual (video) and oral. MLK’s oral political/sermon-like speech remains unaltered (except for the post play), but the video is digitally altered, giving us a…
