Android OEMs seem bent on making the most bizarre, alienating commercials they can manage. Samsung was the first offender – immediately below – but LG now seems to have taken the cake with its latest bit of insanity.
The commonality between the two Android commercials is that they seek to provide a heavy-handed narrative where none is necessary. In Samsung’s Galaxy Gear advert, the creators went to pains to show the convenience of using Galaxy Gear – look Ma, no hands! – to the point where the characters in the advertisement are more amazed by the device itself than they are by the freedom or creativity it affords. Ultimately, the viewers’ focus turns to the ham-handed acting, which makes the ad feel more like To Catch a Predator than anything else.
LG’s G Flex commercial predicates upon the “human nature” of the phone – more specifically, that it’s curved to fit the contours of one’s face. It’s not a bad premise, but the ad – pulled off of LG’s YouTube Channel with understandable haste – takes the idea to a nauseating extreme. I half-expected the phone to morph into some sort of alien and incinerate the entire restaurant, which, actually, would have been slightly preferable to the ad’s actual conclusion.
Which brings me to Apple’s advertising. Many of Apple’s ads – like the one above – don’t focus on the device. In fact, from a visual standpoint, they’re not really about the iPhone or iPad – they’re about what you do with it. And although Apple’s subtext is analogous to that of its Android competitors – that iDevices are convenient (like Galaxy Gear) and intuitively human (LG Flex) – its medium better represents its message. This creative difference doesn’t only boil down to bad advertising on Samsung or LG’s part. It speaks to a fundamental misunderstanding of the user; that he or she wants a device that will get out of the way rather than become a talking point, and facilitate a passion – winemaking, skiing, or birthday parties – rather than a conversation about the device itself.
