You Will

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For other uses, see You Will (disambiguation).

"You Will" was an AT&T marketing campaign that launched in 1993, consisting of commercials directed by David Fincher.[1][2] Each ad presented a futuristic scenario beginning with "Have you ever…" and ending with "…you will. And the company that will bring it to you: AT&T."

The ads were narrated by Tom Selleck.[1]

The creative team that created the ad campaign at N.W. Ayer & Partners were Copy Supervisor Gordon Hasse, Art Supervisor Nick Scordato and Producer Gaston Braun.

One of the first web banner ads ever sold was part of an AT&T campaign that ran on HotWired starting October 27, 1994, asking "Have you ever clicked your mouse right HERE? You Will".[3]

In 2016, technology writer Timothy B. Lee commented that "overall, the ads were remarkably accurate in predicting the cutting-edge technologies of the coming decades. But the ads were mostly wrong about one thing: the company that brought these technologies to the world was not AT&T", except for AT&T provided some of the world's communication infrastructure.[4]

Innovations[]

The proposed innovations included:[5]

  • Grocery checkout machines that would process an entire cart at a time without the groceries needing to be removed, presumably via RFID or something similar ("Have you ever checked out at the supermarket, a whole cart at a time?")[6]
  • Telemedicine ("[Have you ever] put your heads together, when you're not together?")[6]
  • Intelligent personal assistants ("Have you ever had an assistant who lived in your computer?")
  • Videoconferencing ("Have you ever shown up for a meeting in your bare feet?")
  • GPS navigation systems with automatic rerouting based on live traffic ("Have you ever crossed the country without stopping to ask directions?")
  • Wi-Fi/WAN, tablet computing and portable pen computing ("Have you ever sent a fax from the beach?")
  • Smartwatches ("[Have you ever] gotten a phone call, on your wrist?")
  • Self-service kiosks ("Have you ever renewed your drivers license at a cash machine?")
  • Real-time online collaboration, envisioned as two students teaching each other their native languages over videophone ("Have you ever studied with a classmate thousands of miles away?")[7] and, in a separate ad, as a father reading a bed-time story to his child remotely, while they both view the same page of the story on their individual laptops.
  • Online libraries ("Have you ever borrowed a book, thousands of miles away?")
  • Electronic toll collection ("Have you ever paid a toll without slowing down?")
  • Video on demand ("Have you ever watched the movie you wanted to, when you wanted to?")
  • A combination of video conferencing, speech recognition, and translation software ("[Have you ever] conducted business in a language you don't understand?")[7]
  • Home automation ("[Have you ever] kept an eye on your home when you're not at home?") which is accessed in the ad via what resembles a touchscreen smartphone.[7]
  • Distance learning ("[Have you ever] learned special things, from faraway places"?) as a student learns the history of jazz via video conference with his teacher.

References[]

  1. ^ a b Remember The AT&T Ads About the Future? You Will
  2. ^ David Fincher – Other works
  3. ^ The Trailblazing, Candy-Colored History Of The Online Banner Ad from Fast Company
  4. ^ Lee, Timothy B. (28 July 2016). "We live in the future AT&T imagined in 1994 [sic]". Vox. Retrieved 29 July 2016.
  5. ^ Kicker Studio | AT&T’s “You Will” Ads, 15 Years Later
  6. ^ a b "AT&T – You Will/Market (1994) 0:30 (USA) | Adland ®". adland.tv. Retrieved 30 July 2016.
  7. ^ a b c "AT&T – You Will/Class (1994) 0:30 (USA) | Adland ®". adland.tv. Retrieved 30 July 2016.

External links[]

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