The Mea Culpa Campaign

The neat middle-aged executive peers out from the television screen. "Hello," he says, his face crinkling into a sheepish grin. "I'm from General Telephone." Boos and hisses explode off-camera. "Now, I'm aware that General Telephone provides less than adequate service." Plop. A rotten tomato slides down his chin. "But we're spending $200 million in California this year on improving our service." He is hit with an egg. "Cables, switches, personnel, everything." A cream pie splatters over his face. "Thank you for your patience," he mumbles through the goo.

In another commercial, a woman at a crowded cocktail party asks her husband to say something funny. "General Telephone," he replies, and everyone falls into paroxysms of laughter. The punch line: "We know some people think our service is laughable, but we're spending $200 million in California this year to improve it. What's so funny about that?"

These vignettes have appeared on Los Angeles television as part of a zany mea culpa advertising campaign for General Telephone of California. By tacitly conceding the company's mistakes, the admen hope that the campaign will win sympathy and understanding among the system's many disgruntled users. The firm, largest of General Telephone & Electronics' more than 30 telephone subsidiaries, has 1,400,000 customers in Los Angeles, the San Fernando Valley and other areas of Southern California. It is the company that residents love to hate. Public phones are often out of order, private phone bells ring for no reason, strange buzzes come through receivers, conversations are abruptly dis connected, and the slightest delay in paying the bill brings harsh dunning.

Obscene Calls. Company officers have long been aware of their customers' ire. President W. Parker Sullivan has regularly switched his telephone number to avoid complaints. To regain its users' confidence, Sullivan decided that it was time to advertise his firm's efforts at improvement. Another consideration: in May, the company applied to the state's Public Utilities Commission for a 40% rate increase, which would increase gross revenues by $66 million a year.

The advertising campaign was created by Doyle Dane Bernbach Inc., and the admen were under no illusions about the difficulty of their job. "There are a lot of obscene phone calls in Los Angeles," says Ted Factor, Doyle Dane's West Coast supervisor, "and most of them are made to General Telephone." One idea that was raised and scrapped: sweatshirts emblazoned with "General Telephone is better than no telephone at all."

The final success of the campaign will depend on how the promises match the performance. The ads imply that better service is imminent. Yet much of the money being spent by the system is not for improving existing service; it is to meet the needs of increased demand. Only Palm Springs, for example, has pushbutton dialing, and advanced electronic switching systems will not be in operation until 1973. Until these and other improvements are made, the company and its customers are likely to remain disconnected.

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