Nokia has been known for it’s cheeky advertising for a while. They’ve been involved in all sorts of hi-jinks, especially when it comes to Samsung. From parking a Nokia truck by an S4 Zoom ad to market the Lumia 1020, or their mocking of Samsung’s attempt at a Windows phone, the Ativ S. This time around they’ve taken to Twitter to mess with Samsung, editing a Galaxy S4 (Or maybe S3, is it really possible to tell the difference?) to appear snapped in half like a Kit Kat bar.
While some people seem quite offended by the ad, it seems to be a harmless bit of advertising fun. Advertising fun that happens to do an excellent job of both taking advantage of Samsung’s reputation for poor build quality, and bringing to mind Nokia’s reputation for making indestructible phones. Even if implying Samsung’s devices break easily is unfair, that plastic back is famous for being able to withstand some heavy drops, the ad still made me laugh.
The ad does bring up an interesting question, will Nokia be able to compete with the ever-expanding power of Android? That is an interesting question as only a few days ago I might have given a different answer. For a while now Nokia has made the only smartphones outside of Android I found remotely interesting. I have always been bored by iPhones and the other Window’s phone manufacturer’s options have been decidedly unexciting. The Lumia 1020 is arguably the most innovative phone on the market right now based on the camera alone. Unfortunately it is saddled with Windows Phone 8. Windows phone 8 is, for me, easily the second best smartphone OS available right now. Admittedly a distant second but still second.
I was excited to see Android manufacturers getting a little competition. I hoped that Nokia would continue to make awesome devices, and that their cheeky advertising would light a fire under manufacturers, like Samsung, who’ve been decidedly laggy in the innovation department. Sadly those dreams were crushed when Microsoft bought Nokia. Microsoft is famous for their unfortunate hardware, with the exception of the Xbox, just about everything they’ve made has, well, sucked. I expect the same will happen to Nokia. But hey, Microsoft and Nokia have teamed up to make some pretty great commercials. I’m sure we’ll get a few more gems out of them before Microsoft accidentally smothers Nokia in its sleep.