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January 02, 2007

Office Depot casts Thing to battle Easy Button.

Staples has the iconic Easy Button. Now Office Depot breaks a new spot with The Helping Hand (a.k.a. Thing from the Addams Family.) The spot(s)? star a hand-in-a-box merrily directing people through the aisles of Office Depot as a jingle plays.

I went to officedepot.com to learn more. Not even a hat tip to the campaign as of yet. I went to officemax.com. It looked suspiciously like officedepot.com. Or is that visa versa? I started to write this post and then got to wondering if “Handy” was working for Office Depot or OfficeMax? Oh, where are you when we need you Rubberband man? Oh wait, I know. Hoping for some clarification I went Staples.com. Déjà vu. Of course, the Easy Button was easy to find, as were the latest spots, other easy-themed offerings, and the very cool Easy Button widget. Nice. But. Helping hands? Easy buttons? Helping hands slapping Easy Buttons? Finding a way to truly differentiate brands that generally offer a commodity product set is no walk in the park. Still, are any of these brands succeeding in distinguishing themselves from one another or are you just as happy to stop at the office supply place you find first?

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Comments

these spots are creepy.

Speaking of creepy won't someone else join MyBlogLog so we can all stop looking at me?!

When I saw the hand in a box spot I kept waiting for the parody and it never came.

And as far as things in a box being funny, Justin Timberlake has em beat.

Seems like OfficeMax and/or OfficeDepot can't think of their own campaign. The Easy Button was pretty funny and a great campaign. Not to mention the millions of buttons they sold. You guys post some good stuff, I'm an aspiring copywriter and trying to get a job at an agency before I go away to college. Check out my blog and give me some pointers. Thanks!

I didn't mind the hand until it got real punny with the line "We gotta hand it to you,” or something like that. Not sure if the phrase 'the new black' was retired last year or not, but let me be the first to use it in '07: Apparently puns are the new black.

Here, I definitely don't think you're getting brand separation. If anything, the use of the hands theme to play off the Easy button almost makes the three brands merge.

In my blog, http://www.what-a-world.com, I called this Office Depot hand disturbing, freaky and unimaginative.

Plus it is a poor device. People aren't going to buy a "Thing" hand for their desk, like they do the Staples Button.

Interestingly enough, I saw that Office D
Depot visited my blog via my tracking software. Maybe they will soon realize this is a very poor advertising strategy.

http://www.what-a-world.com/2007/01/office_depot_ha.html

My buddies and I were wondering what agency produced the Thing spot, more specifically who did the voice-over for the song in it. Or any direction as to finding the production credits for that or any advertisement.

If Office Depot/Max were to merge, would the next ad run be The Thing clicking the Easy button? that'd be sweet

where can i download that whhooooa office depot song and what is it called?

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