Undercurrent is wise to the world of savvy product-placement ads.
But these days, advertising is less about showing the merits of a device, and more about showing off your latest spokesmodel/sportsperson/celebrity chef doing ridiculous things with the help of autotune, computer-generated wizardry or clever editing.
What better way to advertise a smartphone/tablet hybrid – one which offers cool features like a large screen, a stylus for drawing and a quick camera – than with a video of a famous soccer player doing something completely unrelated to the product in question?
No doubt the ad execs were thinking along these lines: ‘It ties in our brand association with the Olympics, it shows the kind of cool people we associate with as a company, and it makes consumers feel decidedly inferior both in terms of their sporting prowess and musical ability. That’s a win-win!’