Terry Tate: slapstick super-hero for the office pool, or dark fantasy born of a bleak economy?
While some workplace experts argue that civility among stressed-out co-workers has reached new lows, worker bees generally concur that the fictional star of Reebok’s hit new ad campaign by the Arnell Group highlights a line-backer who punishes errant employees with crunching tackles —aims for the funny bone.

“This is much less about a sadistic wish to obliterate your colleague and more about how funny it is to see two worlds colliding, that of a typically buttoned-down workplace with this outrageous enforcer,” says Steve Berg, partner at private equity firm Castanea Partners in Newton, Mass.

Berg was so taken by the Reebok spot, which first aired during the Super Bowl, that he e-mailed a link to the sneaker company’s Web site to two dozen friends. The site is home to the first of four 4-minute Terry Tate movies, which spawned the ad. His favorite bit: when Tate trash-talks an employee for not having a cover sheet on his report. “I mean, that’s so incongruous, it’s hilarious,” Berg says.

Others agree. The Reebok spot landed in the top 10 of USA TODAY’s Super Bowl Ad Meter, and since that airing, 1.3 million people have downloaded the first Tate film off the Reebok site. Clearly, Tate is getting at an office reality. Micky Pant, Reebok’s chief marketing officer, says his own decades of work experience reveal “people have gotten less considerate, social etiquette is all but gone.” The recent downturn in the economy doesn’t help matters, says Jan Yager, workplace consultant and author of Business Protocol. “People feel increasingly pressured to perform. They are overloaded due to downsizing and the speed of today’s business,” she says. “You have to be careful when you use violent images as hyperbole. People must know that it’s fiction.”

Pant agrees: “We were nervous about him hitting women, but in the end, we felt that is what puts the ad into the cartoon realm.” He says his company in no way advocates rough-and-tumble resolutions to intra-office issues. In fact, he says, the Tate ads have contributed to “a lighter atmosphere around our offices, with some folks even doing their own in-house spoof films on the ads.”

The Tate spot is sufficiently absurd, says Los Angeles-based lawyer Chris Moke. “(Reebok) has created a franchise character with this guy precisely by delivering the laughs,” he says. “He’s a fantasy.” Indeed, the man who plays this bear of an office cop just wants everyone to get along. “Terry is entertainment,” says 6-foot-6, 320-pound Lester Speight, aka wrestler-turned-actor Rasta. “But I suppose there’s a little bit of him in everyone. Like when someone cuts in front of you in McDonald’s, you feel a bit bad. Well, with Terry in the office, if you don’t refill the coffee pot, you know that ...”

At this point, he reels off what any great ad must have: a killer cultural catchphrase. Let’s have financier Berg finish it off. “We’ve been repeating this line of Terry’s all day,” he says, winding up for the delivery. “‘The pain train is coming!’”