3Com

The car arrives before the modem does. Its front end fills the left page, driver visible through the windshield, while blue and green motion blur turns the road into something nearly cinematic. Across the dark center panel, the line appears in small white capitals: “ANY MODEM WILL GET YOU ON THE INTERNET. THEN AGAIN, ANY CAR WILL GET YOU ON THE FREEWAY.” It is a comparison with no rival brand named. Getting online is merely arrival at the road; performance is what happens once there.

The narrow right column reveals the actual product: 3Com U.S. Robotics V.90 56K desktop modems. It asks owners of an older “28.8 modem” to imagine faster downloads, streaming video and near CD-quality audio, then claims better overall performance than other V.90 56K devices. The visual does not prove that comparison. It makes the abstract distinction between access and experience felt in the body, as speed, traffic and control. The white copy panel occupies surprisingly little space beside the car, an allocation that gives desire the first look and specifications the second.

The ad’s world is also visible in its route to purchase. A reader is directed to a 3Com retailer or a dedicated /56k web address. The Internet is both the product’s destination and one place to learn about the product, while the modem remains a separate box to choose and install. Broadband and mobile data later changed that relationship: connection became a service embedded in other devices. The scan establishes the earlier retail and hardware logic; the later comparison is an inference from that material.

For a new copywriter, the useful move is the repeated “ANY.” It grants the rival’s minimum claim twice—any modem connects, any car reaches a freeway—before making those claims sound insufficient. The line breaks create a pause before “THEN AGAIN,” so the second sentence revises the first in the reader’s head. The practical lesson is to concede the basic function when the product’s real advantage lies in quality of experience, and let the image dramatize that gap.

3Com was incorporated in 1979 and sold networking equipment as well as the modems in this ad. HP announced its acquisition of 3Com in 2010; the 3Com company no longer operates independently, while HPE’s current networking portfolio serves a different connectivity market.

The durable distinction is between merely connecting and having a satisfying connection. The V.90 speed race and desktop modem purchase have disappeared from ordinary consumer expectations, but the ad’s freeway analogy still explains why an advertised capability needs a felt benefit.