Let's start the year with this dumb AT&T "lollipop" ad, shall we?

 

It's actually pretty impressive that this commercial features more than one customer in an AT&T store- we can clearly see another sales monkey providing service to another customer in the blurry background- making this instantly one of the more realistic AT&T ads I've seen in years.  

Ok, enough with the positive notes.  Now on to the rest of this stupid commercial:

What Lily is explaining is reasonable enough to someone who just wants to be sold a product after pretending to be convinced; she responds to "but isn't everyone offering the best package" with "they SAY they are, but those packages aren't really the BEST."  It's a done deal at that point- it's pretty obvious that this awful couple with a pair of awful children didn't walk unmasked* into an AT&T store to compare deals and were just doing the absolute bare minimum of "research" before handing over their credit card.  But then Lily decides to be a condescending idiot by giving a "demonstration" which "explains" the difference between a GOOD deal and a REALLY GOOD deal, I guess because she thinks she's selling these phones to those kids and not their parents.   And it's not dumb enough that the kids are swayed with big lollipops handed out by a total stranger; Dad wants one too.  Because that's the punchline.  Because nobody doesn't know Funny like AT&T.

*In all of the other AT&T ads I've seen in the past two years, we've been shown one customer and one or maybe two AT&T sales monkeys explaining deals to him/her.  Sometimes they've been wearing masks, but for most of 2020 we didn't even see that.  Now we've got multiple customers and salespeople and no masks.  I guess AT&T is bored with Reality and ready to move on.  Maybe that company really does have the pulse of America.