New Nokia ad says Samsung wants to copy Lumia 1020?

New Nokia ad says Samsung wants to copy Lumia 1020?

A peculiar Nokia ad, presaging the launch of the Lumia 1020 in Abu Dhabi, features parachutists. It also has a weird Asian man at the end who seems to be up to no good.

(Credit: Nokia/YouTube Screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)

You, I am sure, will be excited to see parachutists.

I don't want to keep you from this joy. There are lots of wonderful flying people in this ad.

It is all allegedly shot on a Nokia Lumia 1020 which, I believe, is another great Nokia camera with a nice phone attached.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

I am, however, disturbed by the ending of this piece. For after the descent of the flyers carrying the new phone to Dubai (en route to its destination at the Nokia World event on October 22 in Abu Dhabi), there is a strange coda.

Here we have a man of apparently Asian origin sitting in the back of an SUV, looking mysterious.

He is outside what appears to be the exhibition hall. His intentions do not appear to be entirely honorable.

Though I believe the objective interpretation of art to be entirely meaningless, I asked some relatively intelligent people what they thought this ending might mean.

Here is one response that was repeated several times: "That's Samsung, ready to steal it and copy it."

I wouldn't wish to besmirch Samsung's reputation, until Judge Lucy Koh has offered her definitive judgment on whether the company is, truly, a duplicator or not.

Besides, not everyone thought this gentleman might be from Samsung. One intelligent being told me: "There's a gong at the end. So that must be Huawei."

Is it truly possible that Nokia would depict Samsung or Huawei as nefarious? After all, at CES 2013, Huawei had a rather heavy presence of security heavies, allegedly there to protect its own intellectual property.

I refuse to leap from the fence. So, perched on its splinters, I contacted Nokia to ask whether this was, indeed, the rough meaning of the coda: that an Asian competitor was there, ready to steal and copy this very fine phone.

Should I hear from Nokia, I will copy you on my reply.

In the meantime, perhaps there are students of art criticism loitering here, who would like to offer their modernist interpretation.

The ad itself promises that there are more episodes to this tale. Might this include a Tarantino-directed fight between this shifty man and, say, angry Finns?

news by October 06, 2013 at 01:11AM