Do you love creepy dolls, their heads spinning around on crackling neck cartilage like Linda Blair, surrounded by crawling disembodied limbs, covered in Satanic tattoos and riding some sort of monstrous pony with stilted nightmare legs? Then you’ll love Nokia’s new ad for the N8 Pink!
No ad could better exemplify why Nokia is on the decline. An Apple ad for the iPhone focuses on the features and the apps, the experience of actually using the phone. Meanwhile, Nokia’s paying stop-motion animators to bring to life their LSD fever dreams.
[via MacTrast]
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
35 responses to “This Nightmarish, LSD-Fueled Nokia Ad Is The Antithesis Of Apple’s Advertising Philosophy”
My entire G.I. Joe collection got little plastic erections watching this ad.
very good and nice Thank you very much
loving the laser tits – er so what was the advert for again? (mmmm laser tits)
Was that an actual ad? Will we have to see this mess on TV?
I spent more time thinking of how much fun they had making it than of whatever the hell already-obsolete phone they’re pushing.
But the just-crawled-out-of-a-nightmare horse thing was pretty cool
I don’t know what was scarier. Spider pony or laserphone-boobs.
Dear John Brownlee, please learn the difference between LSD and ecstasy/meth users, and all experiences involved.
I think Apple actually kind of digs an LSD-like experience (soft, beautiful, enlightening), this seems to be more representative of the latter.
Regards,
“Watch the making of” It’s not stop motion it’s live puppet action… geez, John so much for your journalistic credo…
I enjoyed this ad (laser boobs n all) because it’s an interesting concept. It’s bashing pop stars like Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and of course, Pink. Although I’m not too sure WHY they do this, or why they are even making the references accept that Nokia may be pushing this phone as an alternative to the popular “plastic”phones out there. I’ll take disturbing ads over magical ones any day :)
Speaking as someone who has dropped Acid 100’s of times (albeit a long time ago) … you’re full of it. Acid is by no means always, “soft, beautiful (and) enlightening.”
Also, for the record, taking Ecstasy is pretty close to your description of “Acid” so you probably don’t know much about Ecstasy either.
I liked the dolls and the general tone of the ad, it’s very artistic. It was just the horrible music choice that turned me off. I’d like to see them use a musical artist of the same calibre as the visuals.
The author is totally right that this is technically a “bad advert” though, in that it doesn’t actually advertise the product or tell you about it. These kind of ads generally only work with things like Coke or something that is so well-known that you don’t have to tell people what it is or how it works.
Hate to break it to you, you’re not the only one speaking from such experiences, Peabody. Speaking to you as someone who had actively collected acid for over ten years.
Okay, just plain idiotic. Focus away from the phone at all costs…
And this commercial was given the OK by Mattel? Mattel has been notorious for their litigation for anything remotely controversial when it comes to it’s Barbie product.
I get the feeling that we may hear more about this Nokia commercial in the future.
I actually now want to tear my eyes out. That was horrid.
Jeezus. I knew this was a Brownlee post without even looking at the byline. For God’s sake, man, give it up! I’m a 50 year old man and even I knew what this promo was all about. Stop and think: It’s a PINK phone. It’s a PINK song. And you think the most effective way to market this is to tout data speeds and the number of apps available?? Yeah, that’s what 15 year old girls are interested in. “I was gonna get the PINK phone, but chose the Samsung Intercept because it gets 17% longer battery life!”
It’s a GREAT promo.
If I had hallucinations like that I would be in BIG trouble.
Regardless, funny as a short from an art school. I’m confused as to why Nokia paid for it, though: It does a terrible job of saying why you would want to by the product, or even what the product is. A viewer will likely remember the ad, but not what was being advertised.
All you need to understand the full spectrum of Acid trips is a copy of Howard Stern’s “Miss Americs” (yes, THAT Howard Stern). His tale of dropping acid and going to see 2001: A Space Odyssey with his buddy Dave is priceless! You get the good, the bad, and the damned funny, all in one story.