Ad of the Week: Windows Phone – “Really”

It opens simple enough. Something we've all seen. Something we can all relate to. People not paying attention to the world around them because they're staring at and playing with their phones. People walking and texting, people at concerts looking at their phone instead of the show they paid to come see, people ignoring their kids or lovers… this ad for the new Windows phone draws us in with this kind of imagery. It's well shot and well choreographed.People viewing this behavior comment with one word, incredulously spoken, "Really?"

Then, the spot kicks things up a notch when a businessman texting at the urinal drops his phone into the one he's using at the time and immediately fishes it out. We see sharks coming at the feet of phone fixated zombies, unaware phoneaphiles running into each other while jogging or falling down stairs at expensive soirees. The ride roller coasters without looking up from the phone or stop surgery while checking in on their mobile device, there's even a bride coming down the aisle with her face buried in her phone. Finally a fed up kid trying to play ball with his phone fixated dad just hauls off and nails him in the head with the ball.

The spot is a nice slice of real life exaggerated (but not by much) to be quite funny.The music is perfect. The casting and shooting impeccable. And I'm even able to remember who the  ad is for. And I get their premise, our phone is faster so you can get back to real life faster instead of staring at your phone while you wait for something to load. I like the themeline "Be here now" as a guy puts away his phone and goes back to his romantic dinner date. I'm just not sure I buy the premise. I don't thing the problem with people who are buried in their phones is that the phone isn't fast enough. However, I'm sure those kind of people would love a phone that's faster and maybe that's all Windows is really trying to do – get their attention.

 Window's phone – "Really"

Anyway, the spot was good enough to be our ad of the week. Let us know what you think. And if you see something you'd like to submit for our ad of the week, drop us a line, leave a comment, tweet us or Facebook us.

Mike McClure, Executive Creative Director, social media guy and phone fan