Monday, February 25, 2013

How Did They Do That? The BlackBerry Super Bowl Commercial

I was a BlackBerry user for 5 years before moving to my Android. Therefore, I have been watching with interest the development of BlackBerry 10. The series of delays was a large part of the reason I migrated from the BlackBerry to my current smartphone.

From everything I have read and from all of the videos which have been released, the new device looks good. The problem I see is that the new features, while new for the BlackBerry, are not new in the world of smartphones.It's a case of too little too late. The one exception is the camera. Showing you easier that trying to tell you, so here it is...




In the days leading up to the Super Bowl, I heard lots of buzz about a commercial BlackBerry would unveil. The hype included references to the Super Bowl commercial that introduced the Macintosh computer back in 1984. Here is the commercial which aired during the game between the Ravens and the 49ers:




Frankly, I was disappointed. The opportunity was there to demonstrate features which would show BlackBerry 10 to be in the same league with Apple and Google. The opportunity was there to "wow" consumers with a camera that would mean you would never again take a bad picture. Instead, the spot consisted of cute trickery.

While I was disappointed with the commercial, I did wonder how they pulled off some of the tricks. This clip shows how each element was staged.





After seeing how the creators of the spot did what they did, the commercial was a bit more enjoyable.

What did you think of the spot? Was it a winner for BlackBerry?

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