I get that when you’re at the top of the heap, second comers are going to take shots at you. It’s just part of the game. Apple itself is no stranger to this dynamic; witness the beloved Get a Mac ads which wasted no opportunity to take potshots at Windows.
Lately, though, we’ve been privy to a number of god-awful ads attempting, rather poorly, to take potshots against the iPad. Now I’m all for fun and clever videos where competitors take jabs at each other, but that presupposes that they’re actually well produced. Often times, they are not. And sometimes, they’re so bad we just have to point them out and laugh.
The latest offender? A new Nokia web ad for the Lumia 2520 tablet running Windows RT 8.1.
The ad ostensibly disparages the iPad by pointing out that it has no keyboard — this in spite of the fact that there are no shortage of wireless keyboards that work well with the iPad. Curiously, the ad also takes a potshot at the iPad’s battery life, an odd creative decision considering the iPad is typically best in class when it comes to battery life. To be fair, though, the Lumia 2520 reportedly has impressive battery life as well if you take its Power Keyboard into account (an add-on that will tack on an extra $150 to the purchase price).
But what makes this advert comically bad is that it presents yet another unrealistic portrayal of how people really act. This video is littered with examples, such as when the main character, upon discovering low battery life on his iPad, is embarrassed to pull out his clunky laptop in front of a few attractive ladies.
The overarching takeaway, poorly constructed though it is, is that iPad users need to carry around a dedicated laptop to make up for the iPad’s glaring shortcomings.
If only the protagonist in the video had chosen a Windows RT-based Nokia tablet instead!
Now lest anyone think I’m prone to rally against any advertisement that takes jabs at Apple, I can assure that’s not the case. I typically find Samsung’s anti-Apple ads to be quite funny.
As a final point, I wonder when Nokia and Microsoft will realize, if ever, that the “Runs Microsoft Office!” tagline is about as boring as boring gets and probably doesn’t do much at all to sell more units.
New Nokia video targets the iPad in comically bad web ad originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 26 Nov 2013 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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