Tell Us Your Ideal Pandora Advertisement

[bce23w]

I was distracted, in the thread on microphones, by a series of visions. I put it to you:

In a world with a marketing budget, what would be the advertising for the Pandora you would be happiest to see?

At the risk of revealing what a softy I am, here are the first two that I thought of, all 30 second TV commercials:

An instance of our target demographic is playing a game, headphones plugged in. He's yelling at the screen like it's a horror film, like not only the characters can hear him, but that they're responding. His parents look on in concern, finally one taps them on the shoulder and says "You're beginning to worry us." Our hero looks at them blankly in surprise for a second, then unplugs the headphones and says "Hey guys, say hi to my parents." A chorus of voices stream from the tiny device, in all different accents, but all enthusiastic and polite. The looks of concern shift to wonder: video games devices need no longer be only for solitary entertainment!

Someone's playing a game constantly. In their dorm room, during meals, on the bus. A friend finally comments that they're spending a huge amount of time on that, and won't their schoolwork suffer? In response, they plug the Pandora into a projector, and show that it's a game they're developing for class, using the full keyboard (and mock up graphics of a slim IDE that doesn't exist yet). They briefly show the website where they host the game, with positive comments, plus suggestions for "tightening up the encounters on level three" or whatever. The look of concern shifts to wonder: video game devices need no longer be only for pure consumption!

Here's another, that might need to be 60 seconds:

In the early morning mists, in a parking lot at the foot of a trail, a man in his mid-to-late-twenties is leaning against his car, typing on a Pandora, looking up to wave in Dad's grumbling old pickup. The father gets out, at first pleased that his son got here first, but the "Good to see you" falls from his lips with visible disappointment when he notices that his son is holding some other damn electronic thing.

"What have you got there?"

"Oh...I'm just writing to someone," the son says, guiltily.

From the father's long-suffering expression, we figure he's probably sexting with one of his nigh-illiterate drug-using girlfriends.

"Ready to go?" he asks.

"Sure, looking forward to it," the son answers, only looking up briefly.

They begin hiking up the mountain. The father (and camera) notice any number of beautiful sights: a family of deer, wildflowers blooming, the growing tumult of the rocky hills, but the son only looks briefly, perhaps grunting or nodding, before returning to his 800x480 screen. Finally, they reach the peak.

"This is it," the father says, looking out over the valley "the sun is about to come out."

"Sorry, just one more second," the son says, typing frantically.

Finally snapping, the father asks just who it is that he's writing too that is so important. The son insists that it's nothing. The father says then he shouldn't need it, a brief struggle ensues, finally the father has the Pandoora in his possession, and begins reading it aloud, at first mockingly, then in wonder.

(This is just my lousy first draft. PRETEND IT'S HEARTFELT AND BEAUTIFUL IN ITS GLORIOUS BREVITY OKAY.)

"...but the trail is as long as it needs to be, and the moments stretch to accommodate all the dreams (we cut to show the word processor on the screen, or perhaps an offline blogging platform?) squeezed from our hearts by the press of the madd'ing crowd. But all these wordless dreams of beauty are mere reflections of the truth that I (we see him slightly choke with emotion) love him more than I can say."

They hug. The sun comes out. Roll logo. Video game devices need no longer be about estrangement and being uncultured.

Go on then, what are your ideas? Would you go retro with colorful cg and mockery of modern games? Emphasize customization and boxy charm like it's the new Scion? Flout copyright? Put its best face forward.

 

[SomeGuy99]

i have a good one: "Open Pandora: from now on, your number 2 will take 10+ hours"

My ad:

A guy is sitting on the crapper, playing his Pandora. His wife knocks on the door... 'Honey! When are you finished in there?!'

'Two months darling!'

 

[kuru]

Any commercial would have to underline pandora's obvious (technical, not social) plusses:
pocketable, full keyboard, game controls, connectivity, usability, battery life
A few quick cuts show it performing in all those areas, snappy slogan, end.

 

[Trip]

An instance of our target demographic is playing a game, headphones plugged in. He's yelling at the screen like it's a horror film, like not only the characters can hear him, but that they're responding. His parents look on in concern, finally one taps them on the shoulder and says "You're beginning to worry us." Our hero looks at them blankly in surprise for a second, then unplugs the headphones and says "Hey guys, say hi to my parents." A chorus of voices stream from the tiny device, in all different accents, but all enthusiastic and polite. The looks of concern shift to wonder: video games devices need no longer be only for solitary entertainment!

Happened to me when I was living at my parents and playing Battlefield 2 whilst on a Ventrilo server

 

[bce23w]

Any commercial would have to underline pandora's obvious (technical, not social) plusses:
pocketable, full keyboard, game controls, connectivity, usability, battery life
A few quick cuts show it performing in all those areas, snappy slogan, end.

...

Oh, sorry, but your sane and rational list of features just bored me to the brink of death.

Informative commercials don't have the time to convey all the information effectively. In-depth hands-on articles do that much better. For an actual reach-out-and-grab-them commercial, you need to figure out what lifestyle the features enable, what kind of person will want that lifestyle, and then spin a story that lets them recognize it.

For example: The Pandora lets moneyed video-game-playing dudes in their late twenties play all the games of their childhood wherever they go. So make a commercial where you show a kid in the early nineties talking about how some day, there'll be a gameboy that can play super-nintendo and genesis, and it'll have all the games already inside it. He could be giving a wild-eyed presentation in class about "the future of video games," and have a chalk drawing of, duh, a clamshell device with super Nintendo controls and a keyboard. Show less sympathetic kids or adults rolling their eyes at him. "What an imagination you have!" they'll say. The scene dissolves to show the kid, grown up, with a Pandora, shaking his head in amusement at just how right he was. Who wouldn't want to be that guy? You could be, if you order now!

This would of course be a preposterous basis for a real advertisement, since it would be advocating things illegal in all WIPO signatories, but in this thread, anything goes!

 

[SomeGuy99]

Kicker, you adverts are very 1990's in feel... probably good for twenty or thirtysomethings thinking about it?

 

[kuru]

i see we have a different audience ; )

 

[Wrath Of Khan]

Actually though a write up in edge magazine would seriously boost sales,or a full page ad in edge.
Guess this sort of thing can only happen when they have enough stock to meet demand.

 

[bce23w]

Kicker, you adverts are very 1990's in feel... probably good for twenty or thirtysomethings thinking about it?

So what you're saying is we need some ads for old people. I can buy that. Any suggestions? What do the ancient want from the Pandora?

 

[Yod4z]

All in your hand, the power of the free life. Gaming, Internet, music, working, do what you want when you open the Box

 

[craigix]

My current plan is to play on the 'The Pandora. Not built by Chinese slaves who want to kill themselves'.

And a photo of the UK assembly team with information about each person.

 

[bce23w]

My current plan is to play on the 'The Pandora. Not built by Chinese slaves who want to kill themselves'.

Indignant iPhone user: "What's even the point, then?!"

Edit: But seriously, the "made by real people" angle is solid freaking gold.

 

[WizardStan]

Except for the case.

 

[cobaltage]

The best advertising would be if the Pandora were seen in use on CSI: Something-or-Other, and on Doctor Who.

 

[Aninhumer]

I just had an idea for a short one:

Someone is sat typing on a (linux) laptop, then they get up, move to a position so that perspective makes it look smaller, then pick it up at it's "new size" and put it in their pocket, and walk out. Then some catchy slogan about it being a full computer you can carry around.

Not sure how well that would actually work though. :huh:

 

[elwing]

hum....

Will it blend?


h34r:

 

[miseryguts1969]

I think we need a stop motion video like the kind of stuff they used to do in 70s TV shows like Take Hart, Vision On etc (UK TV) with multiple "dancing" Pandoras choreographed to the beat of - John Barry's Florida Fantasy.

 

[bce23w]

I think we need a stop motion video like the kind of stuff they used to do in 70s TV shows like Take Hart, Vision On etc (UK TV) with multiple "dancing" Pandoras choreographed to the beat of - John Barry's Florida Fantasy.

What would they be doing? Just moving around? "Man, that phone looks like it would be really difficult to talk into!"

 

[craigix]

oooo... Involving China might not be the wisest idea.
Focus on Retrogaming and OpenSource-ness!

Why? We don't use slave labour. The cases are made by machines, we might even move the case moulds to the UK if we get our own machine.

How many other tech manufacturers can say they don't use slave labour?

 

[noisome]

All it needs a TV show like NCIS and have Abby use it on the road to decrypt the laptop's security next to her through the DoD's hacked backdoor access left open because the Pandora Bluetoothed in to an unsecured phone and created a middle-man-attack-type Wifi access point that intercepted signals and planted via a script all while she's playing Breath Of Fire that she loved as a child on her SNES.