Microsoft's new Nokia ad "Not Like Everyone Else" is... for the colorful

Posted:
in iPhone edited May 2014
After taking over Nokia's handset operations on Friday, Microsoft has released a new a new ad that presents its phones as "Not Like Everyone Else," distinguished primarily by the iPhone 5c-like colors of Apple's top selling middle-market iPhone.



Microsoft's new commercial presents a series of older men in black and white who are suddenly mesmerized by a younger man in bright colors, wearing yellow earbuds attached to a brightly colored phone that could be mistaken for an iPhone 5c until it presents the Metro interface of Microsoft's Windows Phone.

As the brightly colored man walks along, another black and white figure drops his drab phone just upon looking at the colorful man with a phone in his pocket. A couple then engage in a domestic dispute after the woman flirtatiously gazes upon the main character.

He then is adored by a black and white little girl, before being politely smiled at by a woman also dressed in color and holding a Windows-based tablet created by Nokia, a product very similar to Microsoft's own Surface.

"Everything just became a lot #morecolorful," the ad states in all capital letters, before ending with an animated display of Nokia-branded phones, all in vibrant colors.

The new Microsoft ad is similar to a earlier, darker Nokia commercial from 2012, which presented color as a reason not to buy a "5" phone, just as Apple was selling its iPhone 5 in a "space grey" black or a "silver" white version.



Marketing color as a primary differentiator from Apple became impossible late last year, however, when Apple introduced iPhone 5c in a spectrum of five shiny colors, each of which could be outfitted with a matching or contrasting case in six matte colors.

Apple has been heavily advertising iPhone 5c as "for the colorful" ever since, initially appealing less to the surface color and instead focusing on the metaphorical "color" of the wide range of people portrayed using it.



A second ad presented color as an aspect of Apple's hardware and software being "designed together so you feel color throughout the entire experience," as the company states in its YouTube account.



A third spot more abstractly portrayed the iPhone 5c color as a "completely new expression of iPhone that's not just for lovers of color. It's for the colorful."



Analysts immediately pounced on the $550 iPhone 5c as being too expensive to sell against Android phones, which have an average selling price of around $215.

Criticism grew when initial sales reports indicated that the majority of holiday season buyers were opting to get the even more expensive iPhone 5s, which sported the industry's first 64-bit Application Processor, Touch ID and a significantly improved camera and DuoTone flash.

Despite selling in much smaller quantities than the 5s, Apple sold so many iPhones over the past two quarters that despite the 5c's smaller percentage, it still managed to outsell every other Android flagship, all Blackberry phones put together, and the sum of all Windows Phone models sold in the quarter.

In appealing to color, Microsoft may be hoping to ride the coattails of Apple's ubiquitous iPhone 5c advertising, but color is also the primary, recognizable feature one might associate with Nokia, which has been selling brightly colored phones for years.

Nokia fans even called Apple's iPhone 5c a knockoff because of its use of vibrant colors, although Apple has been featuring product color for years, from 2012's iPod touch to previous years of iPod nanos and minis dating back to 2004.

iPod color


Prior to that, Apple famously brought vibrant color into the drab PC market with the Bondi Blue iMac in 1998, followed by a series of candy colors reflected in Apple's "Aqua" OS X desktop. The iMac jump-started an industry trend in colorful, translucent plastics, particularly among peripherals using the new USB interface it helped to launch into the mainstream.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 76
    rogifanrogifan Posts: 10,669member
    People say the 5C colors are ugly but I look at that first Nokia video and think the same thing.
  • Reply 2 of 76
    Microsoft Phones, not selling "like everybody else."
  • Reply 3 of 76
    chandra69chandra69 Posts: 638member

    Not the days to hate Microsoft. These are the days to hate Google and embrace Microsoft.

    /* But do not buy any Microsoft product. */

    If the fight is between Apple and Microsoft - Apple is ours.

    If the fight is between Google and Apple - Apple is ours.

    If the fight is between MS and Google - MS is ours.

    IF the fight is between Samsung and Google - Google is ours.

    :) 

  • Reply 4 of 76
    Not bad. Great song choice.
  • Reply 5 of 76
    phone-ui-guyphone-ui-guy Posts: 1,019member
    That is such a terrible commercial.
  • Reply 6 of 76
    jungmarkjungmark Posts: 6,926member
    Wasn't the iPod's tag line "more colorful"?

    In addition, MS marketing should have stayed away from the color ads as Apple already used them for the 5C.
  • Reply 7 of 76
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member

    Nokia have been doing colour on their smartphones well for a number of years now and Windows Phone uses colour from a system perspective a lot more coherently than iOS.  There's no scope for "Apple invented colour" here.

     

    I quite like the ad, reminds me of Pleasantville, the weird ad is pretty cool too.

     

     

    P.S. the iPhone 5 wasn't sold in a Space Grey version, it was Black and Slate IIRC.

  • Reply 8 of 76
    rogifanrogifan Posts: 10,669member
    crowley wrote: »
    Nokia have been doing colour on their smartphones well for a number of years now and Windows Phone uses colour from a system perspective a lot more coherently than iOS.  There's no scope for "Apple invented colour" here.

    I quite like the ad, reminds me of Pleasantville, the weird ad is pretty cool too.


    P.S. the iPhone 5 wasn't sold in a Space Grey version, it was Black and Slate IIRC.
    Where is this article claiming Apple invented color?
  • Reply 9 of 76
    kerrybkerryb Posts: 270member
    Any company, in this case Microsoft should be embarrassed by this ad. A guy walking around with colors off the back of Ronald McDonald through a cool and "edgy" urban alley with hipsters in wool caps at every turn.... fire the ad agency or the executing the signed off on this one.
  • Reply 10 of 76
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Rogifan View Post





    Where is this article claiming Apple invented color?

     

    I didn't say there was, but the article is clearly setting up a rivalry for who copied who with the different posited ads and the history of the iPod.  There's no real need for that argument, Nokia are allowed to be colourful and to use it in their advertising without it descending into a VS spitting match.

  • Reply 11 of 76
    eldernormeldernorm Posts: 232member
    While the ear phones may have been yellow, the placement of the volume control, mike etc sure make it look like an iPhone or iPod system.

    Hey, Apple is great, so if we look like them and act like them and advertise like them, maybe you will buy us by mistake.... (hopefully) LOL

    Just LOL.
  • Reply 12 of 76
    ugh
  • Reply 13 of 76
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member
    Nokia hands-free kits have had the microphone on the headphone cable since the late 90s.
  • Reply 14 of 76
    Dan_DilgerDan_Dilger Posts: 1,583member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Crowley View Post

     

     

    I didn't say there was, but the article is clearly setting up a rivalry for who copied who with the different posited ads and the history of the iPod.  There's no real need for that argument, Nokia are allowed to be colourful and to use it in their advertising without it descending into a VS spitting match.


     

    Well you're kind of inventing all of that yourself. The article only points out the irony of Microsoft advertising color as if it's some unique feature in a black and white world, which is particularly tone deaf given that Apple has been incessantly promoting iPhone 5c as "for the colorful" for the last six months. It made more sense back in 2012 when Nokia first tried it.

     

    But the thing is, Nokia currently doesn't have much else to market besides colors. It can't promote any sort of advanced chip or even sell Microsoft's Metro interface as a feature, because that's not selling. The other thing Microsoft could market is advanced camera/optics, but that isn't even mentioned in this ad.

     

    It appears that Nokia's camera advantage is not selling, because that was Nokia's other line of advertising, and it didn't seem to win converts. 

  • Reply 15 of 76
    jkichlinejkichline Posts: 1,369member

    I actually liked the commercial... but it's a bunch of bull crap (as most commercials are). Sure you can be different (wasn't that Apple's advertising idea with the Think Different campaign?) but there's a reason everyone else is using an iPhone or iPad.

     

    I don't think the driving force behind the commercial was that "hey we have colored phones", but more to make iPhones seem boring and average, and the Nokia is something new and exciting you should try... like dating a hot librarian who matches her tablet colors to her tight sweaters.

  • Reply 16 of 76
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,177member
    With Microsoft now owning Nokia's phone business you'd expect they'd quickly distance themselves from the Android-fork OS Nokia developed for their X phone. Surprisingly that answer is apparently "Nope". Microsoft will still use it on some future phones. :err:
  • Reply 17 of 76
    Why does an commercial always have to be in an nondescript Back-alley with nondescript music, this should be about state-of-the-art tecknology
  • Reply 18 of 76
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Corrections View Post

     

     

    Well you're kind of inventing all of that yourself. The article only points out the irony of Microsoft advertising color as if it's some unique feature in a black and white world, which is particularly tone deaf given that Apple has been incessantly promoting iPhone 5c as "for the colorful" for the last six months. It made more sense back in 2012 when Nokia first tried it.


    So you can only advertise your unique selling points?  Well the iPhone 5C certainly wasn't the first colourful phone or smartphone, so where was your criticism of their incessant promotion of colour in the "for the colorful" advertising campaign?  Not unique, so tone deaf, right?

     

    There's no irony.  MicroNokia are advertising colour as a feature of their device, and a part of that will also be allegory towards being different with a different kind of phone from everyone else has.  Both of those are true, and that's fine.  No news here.

  • Reply 19 of 76
    rokradrokrad Posts: 143member
    Interesting ad up until the end which threw the commercial pacing off...
    But this seems more like a dig at android phones than apple.
  • Reply 20 of 76
    djkikromedjkikrome Posts: 189member
    I think the girl in the bar was using her Phablet! Looks like a size for the Samsung S6, a 13" touchscreen phablet. Because bigger is better!?!
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