“Must be the season of the witch…”
Finally, a commercial that looks at how people have become so distracted by their phones and mobile devices these days, they do not realize the chaos it has caused. With all the crimes involving smartphone users in 2009 (pc world), I wouldn’t be surprised if the numbers have increased at an increasingly alarming rate in this year. This commercial depicts what some would call an exaggeration of the truth. I would agree, but the truth lies where they have just about gathered almost every possible accident and put into one commercial. We see all the tragedy caused by distracted mobile users being revealed to us, as we loosely follow a distracted mobile user who amazingly isn’t involved in an accident yet.
This commercial was aired this week as an eerie teaser that made me actually stop what I was doing and watch the PSA, well at the time I assumed it was a PSA. The 1960’s song used in this video is called, “Season of the Witch”, by Donovan from the album entitled, Sunshine Superman. You can find the lyrics here. To me the song is about a man who is awakened to the horrors of his society. The song has been featured in Horror Movies, TV Series and it even shares its title with a book in published in the 1970’s.
iJerk™ Meter: LOW -False sense of security in a phone; wake-up call.
Breakdown: Frame by Frame
0:01- We open to a fairly frail young man walking in the middle of the street, heavily engaged with possibly texting on his phone, oblivious to what is going on around him.
—
0:09- Now we see a male busy with his phone while sitting on his over turned moped.
—
o:18- Possible “Eye- Candy Alert” for the males watching this video, a young woman on her phone. Could she be texting you? Not likely. She seems a bit oblivious to what’s going on around her. You’ll have better luck trying to talk to that annoying yellow sign in the background.
—
0:25- A woman is on her knees, in what seems to be the aftermath of an accident involving produce, while twiddling away on her phone. Is it me, or does she look a little bit like Angela, from NBC’s The Office?
—
0:34- Wait, is that a guy on the ground, partially entangled in his over turned bike, while on his smartphone? I hope he is calling for help lol.
—
0:38- This guy in the sports jacket just broke a tackle for a Touchdown!!!! Oh wait, this isn’t football, this is just moderate contact texting while walking.
—
0:48- Come on now, I can’t take this anymore! The guy in this shot has hit a pole and he doesn’t seem to care, he’s just texting away. I wonder if that is how he hit the pole in the first place. Everyone around him seems to be texting like zombies out of a bad horror movie.
—
0:52- And…slogan! Wait, slogan, not great message of wisdom for the masses? Oh no, I’m about to be sold a product!
—
0:57- I see an odd looking, yet informative, Graphical User Interface. But then I realized even more that this is a Windows Phone 7 ad. An Advertisement! Are you kidding me! It was all going well until I realized that someone was trying to sell me a smartphone. I feel tricked, bamboozled, even violated…well not violated. Fine you have my attention, Windows Phone 7, let’s see if you can live up to your message.
Verdict: Great commercial, would have been better if it was just a PSA and didn’t try to sell me a phone. Though now my interest is in trying out the phone because apparently I can do what I need to do and get off in a timely manner so I won’t be like the typical iPhone or BlackBerry user. It was geared to those who are tired of having to tap there way through pretty buttons that take them nowhere on their previous phones. We’ll see, I hear Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 or whatever, is supposed to come out in a year or so anyway; so I may skip this window mobile version of OS. If any of you readers try it, let me know what your experience was.
