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(Image source: Nokia)
BY EVAN THOMAS
ANCHOR LOGAN TITTLE
If you’re getting an iPhone 5, you can
get it in any color you like — as long as it’s black or white. Nokia wants us to remember
there are options.
Its latest German TV spot tells the story of an Apple line-waiter
with a simple question — can I get it in yellow?
And that’s all there is to
the ad. AppleInsider points out instead of explaining features or capabilities that set
its handsets apart, Nokia went the cosmetics-as-a-selling-point route.
The problem with that angle, says
a writer for CNET, is it’s subjective.
“I am not entirely convinced that everyone is
looking for a phone of many colors, though. There's something about bright colors that
suggests cheap on occasion.”
But The Verge says the ad makes its point — the
iPhone is getting boring. Sure, colors don’t have any bearing on phone performance, but
change is change — and any disruption could do Nokia and Windows Phone 8 well.
And
if we read further into it, there’s a weird irony to the ad. MobileSyrup likens it to
another famous TV spot, from Apple itself.
In any case, Nokia joins Verizon and, probably
most famously, Samsung in airing confrontational ads. Nokia wasn’t the first to do this,
and TechCrunch says it won’t be the last.
“For better or worse, phone manufacturers have
turned to attacking the Apple and the iPhone rather than simply advertising their phones.”
And
it can be difficult to tell if such ads have much of an effect. The iPhone 5, after all,
blasted through sales records set by Apple’s previous handset.