They say nothing new is under the sun anymore, even when it comes to the design and features of gadgets. Motorola probably thinks that as well and they may be of the opinion that the only innovation you can bring to the industry is through modular accessories, like what they’re doing with their Moto Z. And it looks like they have a weird and surreal video ad to go with it. The almost 1-minuter ad pokes fun at the design aesthetics of its competitors, claiming in the end that they “changed the smartphone”.
The video looks like an audition reel for Euro Vision (and if you don’t know what that is, Google it stat, to complete your life!) or a music video for Zoolander. It features two “avant garde” looking designers who are painfully trying to come up with a new design for their smartphone by placing the headphone jack in different places. Obviously, it was poking fun at Apple and how it controversially removed the headphone jack and maybe even Samsung and LG’s supposedly different designs but end up being design tropes.
Reaction to the weird ad has been mostly weird as well. If they were going for absurd, then they probably achieved it, although it may not have been necessarily the good or even funny kind. The video has been widely panned and laughed at, without necessarily praising Motorola for its attack of the “status quo”.
At the end of the day though, it will all boil down to sales. Let’s see how the Moto Z and its Moto Mods will stack up against the Galaxy S8s and LG G6s of the world.
