For those of you who read my posts from the actual site instead of your RSS reader, you may have noticed that either a) that the site is down or b) the layout has changed. That’s because the database keeps acting up. I can’t seem to save changes and sometimes the theme files get corrupted. For example, comments seem to be switching off constantly on newer posts. Also, file permission values changes don’t stay on. Thank god the posts are still intact.
I’m working on it, but the layout is not a priority right now, getting this darn thing to work is. I’ve been hearing that my provider isn’t the most reliable around, and they have a bad habit of transferring databases to new servers without notice. And sometimes they botch the operation.
I upgraded to WordPress 2.5 now and I’ve been doing some of the changes to the PHP files on my comp and then uploading them instead of using the built-in editor. That has solved some of the problems.
Just saw JJ Abrams’ new movie “Cloverfield”. The movie drew raves for its innovative viral campaign, with mysterious web-sites and blogs plus some very intriguing fake news videos:
The campaign itself is worth a blog post, but it’s been discussed ad nauseam, so I’ll concentrate on something else: Nokia’s effort to position itself as a credible prop in the movie. After its borderline embarrassing showing in Transformers, I was interested to see if they had toned down their presence a bit to a more supporting role instead of a corny cameo.
In cultural branding, a brand can become an icon through its association with popular culture and presence in influential cultural products. Classic examples are Harley Davidson and Easy Rider or Jack Daniels and Hud. As an example, Set Godin once said that Indiana Jones sold more hats for Stetson than any man since the Marlboro man.
Nokia has its own, poor man’s version of this kind of branding. The people at Nokia were very pleased at how their presence in “Matrix” aligned perfectly with the plot and the movie’s message. The lead character, Neo, was seen repeatedly using the so-called “banana phone”, the Nokia 8110. However, I don’t know if Neo as a character is iconic enough nor do I believe the link between Nokia and the Matrix is not quite as strong as for example Harley Davidson and Easy Rider. Also, the phone itself has become outdated so badly that the memory between 8110 and the current models might be fading. This I think is a recurring problem for brand building in any fast moving industry, such as mobile phones.
The banana phone, an iconic product?
So, back to Cloverfield. I think Nokia’s presence was very tastefully done, especially compared to Transformers where they Nokia was actually included in the dialogue and in a awful way at that. In Cloverfield, all the cell phones used were indeed Nokia’s, but their usage felt natural (people taking video and pictures of events etc.) and Nokia was never mentioned by name. In one scene, however, the shot is set in a way that you can see a large Nokia print ad in the background of a sobbing lead character, which I thought was pushing the limits of what is “artistically acceptable”, for a lack of a better word. But all in all, technically the inclusion of Nokia was nearly flawless, but how about in terms of cultural branding?
The thing about Cloverfield is that the characters are too “real”, in that none of them have the distinguishness to become an iconic character. This is of course the whole idea of the movie, but from Nokia’s perspective this is a letdown, as they likely won’t stand the test of time and be remembered as iconic characters of our era, like an Indiana Jones or James Bond. Also, again the phone usage is in such a supporting role in the movie that the link here might not be strong enough to argue that the characters’ phone usage is somehow essential to their persona. But on the other hand, the phone usage is indeed very natural and justified, so I guess in terms of building awareness for Nokia phones this works very well.
This ad is in Finnish, but trust me, you’ll get the point.
Wow. Feels like I’ve been drawn back to the 1980′s advertising world or something – and even there this ad would simply suck in black hole proportions. User imagery, emotional benefits, associations to “fun” and “party”… this ad has everything you’d expect from a classic mind-share branding train wreck. Just a gut-wrenching experience to watch.
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