If BlackBerry’s first Z10 ad – aired during Sunday’s Super Bowl – left you feeling a little dazed and confused, perhaps the mobile maker’s second offering will have a more positive impact.
Aired in Canada on Monday, the 60-second ad works towards the tagline built to keep you moving. It even shows you a little of what the device can do, as opposed to what it can’t, which is excellent news for anyone thinking of buying it.
The new ad, featuring a guitar-heavy soundtrack by Perth-based psychedelic hypno-groove melodic rock band Tame Impala, takes you on a journey through the lives of others, with various scenes linking to features found on the new Z10 device, such as the ability to ‘flick’ predicted words into a mail and the Time Shift photo mode that allows you to pick the best shot from a burst.
BlackBerry’s initial Z10 ad showed a guy carrying the handset as he 1- set himself on fire (sort of), 2- walked down the street with the feet of an elephant, 3- teleported himself to some place below street level, and 4- turned an out-of-control truck heading in his direction into a million rubber ducks. We were then told the device couldn’t do any of those things. And that was it.
The Z10 has already launched in the UK, and hits the Canadian market – BlackBerry’s home turf – on Tuesday. Consumers in the US waiting to get their hands on the new smartphone will have to wait until March, with rigorous testing of the device and its BlackBerry 10 operating system taking longer than expected – a situation BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins is understandably unhappy about.
“Am I a bit disappointed? Yeah, I would be lying saying no,” he told the Associated Press on Monday. “But it is what it is and we’re working with all our carrier partners to speed it up as much as we can.”
According to a report yesterday, many UK consumers in the market for a smartphone have been taking a real interest in the Z10, a response which needs to be replicated the world over if the-company-formerly-known-as-RIM is to get its business back on track. Heins even claimed that a “substantial” number of British smartphone buyers have been moving to BlackBerry from other platforms in the last few days, though he declined to give any specific numbers.
“It’s beyond expectations,” he told AP when asked about the Z10’s UK debut. “White is sold out already. The black is hard to stock up again. It’s very encouraging.”
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