One of the basic axioms of Marketing Wisdom is that wise marketers win customers with wit, humor and entertainment. One of the latest examples of this is series of ads promoting AT&T’s Family Talk program with Rollover Minutes.

Like AT&T’s other recent stellar ad campaign, the Alter Ego series (More Bars in More Places), the Rollover Minutes campaign features excellent writing, fine acting and a wonderful choice of characters – especially the casting of the mom and the oldest son. As the series progresses, the ads increasingly emphasize the tension between the mom’s frugality (“Rollover minutes are still good!”) and the son’s obstinate insistence that the Rollover Minutes are old and therefore useless. (“Mom, these minutes are from September”).

I’m guessing that the campaign’s focus on the interaction between the two characters evolved as the series progressed. The two initial spots featured the entire family with mom, dad and the two sons in the kitchen eating. In the first spot, mom finds the discarded minutes in the trash and in the second spot milk is spilled on the minutes. Later spots feature just the mom and the son. The most recent spot ends with a silent glare-off between the two, which exquisitely portrays the mom’s anger at her teen-age son’s rebellion.

So, what’s the point? First, like the spots in AT&T’s Alter Ego campaign, these spots bear repeated watching that reveals nuances in the performances. This is no mean feat when you consider that the dramas are only 30 seconds long. As an aside, this is yet another example of commercials that are vastly superior in writing, casting and production to many of the TV shows they interrupt.

The second point is that the spots do an excellent job of conveying the advertiser’s message in a memorable fashion. Let one be tempted to pass over this point too quickly, the hold grail of television advertising has always been memorability.

And third, both AT&T campaigns show that paying close attention to the details of dialogue, casting, wardrobe, and set design matter when doing any kind of movie regardless of the length or budget.

One final point – unlike of the arch and hokey devices employed by all too many packaged goods commercials since before television was broadcast in color, the drama depicted in each of the spots in both AT&T campaigns derive its effectiveness from finding the humorous and/or ironic possibilities in common, real life experiences.