I’m not sure that the average Bob and Betty on the street have that much appreciation for the role of advertising agencies in the ads they see. If they do it’s probably a stereotypical Darrin Stevens or thirtysomething concept of what goes on.

The reason I ask this is that the folks commenting over at Gordon and Frank seem to be very quick to talk about Bell’s agency. For the first week, most of the comments on our post were generally negative towards the ads and to Norm MacDonald’s involvement. Then on Monday, February 13th the posts took a turn and became overwhelmingly positive. I’m not sure what might have caused this — maybe the ads changed or something. Anyway, here are a few representative posts:

Hilarious. It’s about time we show our great Canadian sense of Humour. How about stuffed animal mascots for sale. Great fund raiser for our future Canadian Athletes. I buy a pair. Keep up the great work.I’m proud to be a Canadian and a Bell subscriber.

Hooray to the Bell Marketing department to hire a company with a sense of humour. Enjoy the ads, breaking up the sometimes dry CBC commentary.

Frank and Gordon have to be the BEST ad on TV for a long time. In fact, the advertisers at the Super Bowl paid millions to have their ads seen and I dont remember one of them!!!! SO Frank and Gordon have certainly outrated even the Super Bowl.. They are wonderful, funny, and all Canadian. Right on Bell for picking the right ad for the 2006 Olympics, I hope we see more of Frank and Gordon for other events, you’ve got a winner there. Good One.!!!!!

I love the Frank and Gordon commercials! They are so much fun to watch. Great work for whoever came up with these commercials! Keep up the good work!!!

Half the fun of watching the Olympics this time around is seeing Frank & Gordon in the commercials. Their website is great too. I would love to buy the stuffed version of the duo. And if you think about it, its just funny that Norm is the voice of Frank, the patriotic beaver. Because, I, for one, haven’t watched this much CBC in a long time. I wouldn’t even think of turning to an American station to watch the Olympics.

Relax people, don’t get political, it’s just a commercial and a good one at that. Cheers to the advertising agency that came up with this one. They are fun to watch and I’m sure the US would love to see our Bell commercials on their TV. Toques off to Frank and Gordon.

I have not seen any commercial that makes me want to split a gut. Hats off to who ever created Frank and Gordon. I simply Love them!!! Its nice to have a hardy laugh at the end of a work day. Kudos!!!!!

I’ll be honest, I’m a little suspicious. I’ve been checking IP addresses as these comments come in and I’m not seeing anything that says they are planted. They come from all over the country through many different services providers at all times of day. Given the traffic, these pages are getting there aren’t even an abnormally large number of comments. Besides, people seem to really like the beavers.

In fact, CFRB’s Daily Poll is about Frank and Gordon today and “love” is beating “hate”, 84% to 16% as I write this. So maybe Bell does have a huge groundswell of support for these new mascots. Maybe they’re the next Spuds Mckenzie. But I have to ask, do you know anyone in the real world that talks like this about advertising? Anybody have examples of ad forums, TV discussion boards, etc. that show similar passion for ads? I’m just curious.

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Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on February 21, 2006.