Four times a year, Stephen Colbert acquiesces to his network’s request that he includes a sponsor’s name and product into his program. And four times a year, those advertisers are forced to cringe through the segment for which they paid big money.
On Wednesday night, it was T-Mobile’s turn to finance their own humiliation, and ads don’t get much crappier than the one they got. Literally, it was a segment about crapping.
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Colbert led off his show with a joking nod to the product he was supposed to integrate into the show, giving it a cursory mention that would have probably pleased T-Mobile’s marketing execs had it been the only nod they got. But of course, Colbert had much bigger plans.
During a segment about an experimental Israeli constipation drug that buzzes down the colon, Colbert suggested that an alternate treatment was just shoving a vibrating smart phone up one’s rectum. A phone serviced by, say, T-Mobile.
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“Remember: T-Mobile, put it in your butt,” he said proudly, delivering the company its most memorable endorsement in years.
Now, branding experts, have a field day: Was that a good look for T-Mobile, or a nightmare?