SkyTel Hopes You Won’t Miss This Message

Advertiser: SkyTel

Agency: Suissa Miller Advertising, Los Angeles

Challenge: Drive home the advantages of the SkyTel paging service, which guarantees delivery of messages.

The Ads: A series of four 15-second ads use famous characters from fact and fiction to show what can happen when messages are lost. In what may be the first spoof of “Titanic,” the ship hits an iceberg as a voice-over announces: “There are times you can’t afford to miss a message.” An image of a SkyTel pager appears, with this message on its screen: “Captain, water icy. How about a Caribbean cruise instead?” In other ads, Julius Caesar misses a message about Brutus, Cinderella misses a message telling her to get home by midnight, and Dracula misses a message about a switch to daylight saving time.

Comment: The spoofs lightheartedly convey pitfalls of missed messages, underscoring the value of SkyTel’s guarantee. Interestingly, the ads are 15 seconds long, not only to save money on commercial time but also to convey the feeling of rapidly receiving a pager message. $$$