“Motorola today sent out a segment of its teased Super Bowl ad that revealed its strongly anti-Apple rhetoric,” Electronista reports.
“The 15-second snippet portrays iPhone and iPad users as Orwellian proletarians, all wearing the same white hoodies and white earbuds,” Electronista reports. “The lone Motorola Xoom owner, appropriately reading 1984, is comparatively colorful and uses his tablet to help him find a flower shop.”
MacDailyNews Take: When doing a half-assed knockoff of an iconic Apple product, why not do the same to their famous Super Bowl ad, too?
Electronista notes, “The ad also carries a degree of irony as it encourages users to switch to a platform with as much market share in the smartphone world and controlled by Google, whose goal is to track users’ behavior.”
Read more in the full article here.
The leaked portion of the ad:
MacDailyNews Take: Motorola’s trade dress infringement is so severe, most Super Bowl partiers will think this is an iPad ad, if they notice it at all. For the teetotalers, this ad is tractionless pap that, so far, impresses the following message upon the viewer: “Get a Xoom to go with your Zune, Kin boy, you connoisseur of orphaned, dead-end tech, you.”
Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha: iDon’t have an original idea in my head, and neither does our ad agency.
i doubt they are
Ah, yes, the “fanboy” attack. Only tech-geeks (like us who follow this blog) know or care (?) what a fanboy is. The idea of Apple/MSFT/Google fanboys is so saturated with us, that it’s beyond tired.
When non-geek consumers (most of the world) see this, they’ll either mistake that for an iPad or think Motorola is releasing a me-too iPad. Either way, iPad wins.
I know there will be more Android tablets before too long. They’ll likely get the majority of tablet market share. Apple is a luxury brand now. If you’re carrying an Android tablet, it’s because you couldn’t or weren’t willing to buy an iPad. “But Android’s better. It’s open. It’s anti-establishment.” Nope. All people will see is you were too cheap to buy an iPad.
Put that in your bag with your Sansa MP3 player, Coby headphones, and Walgreens e-reader.
@RL
Ipad is .5 inches think, Xoom is .51 inches think. So you think the current ipad looks thick then?
Xoom runs Honeycomb, an OS designed specifically for a tablet, to make specific use of the larger screen size. Current iPad, runs OS most specifically designed for a phone, with some minor tweaks.
Please feel free to elaborate on those “minor tweaks” if you disagree.
That should go over as well as Apple’s 1985 Lemmings Super Bowl As.
Motorola Mobility. Apple is going to buy out your super bowl slot and your elaborate commercial will air as the original Apple 1984 video.
Honeycomb hideout…
Don’t be a drone, be a droid.
@Joe
That you think iOS is just phone software alone flags you as an ignorant troll. Leave.
What does that have to do with football or beer?
Funny how the only thing he did that you can’t already do on iPad is 3D Maps viewing… Which of course is Google’s fault…
Also, “All screen images simulated”
LOLFAIL
@cb
No Fanboyism is not a cause, it’s an effect. Without brilliantly transcendent products there are virtually no fanboys. No matter how ubiquitous, Apple devices are bought via a personal choice for better technology. Most of the devout followers here would abandon Apple if they stopped bringing such fabulous goods, and well they should.
Most people are going to think he’s using an iPad and become confused. The multi-touch gestures look just like those patented by Apple and the device and bezel shape are very similar to those patented by Apple…
why stop at trade dress… why not copy the most iconic commercial of all time – Apple’s 1984?
translation of this commercial, “If you use the best, you’re a sheep. You should buy an inferior copy of and iPad to be different and stand out… it’s not what you do with your device that makes you an individual – it’s which company’s device you choose that shows your individuality.:
BIG FAIL
It looks like a high school ad project. Lame is the word!
And yes, I also thought it looked like an iPad!
This PAINFULLY obvious “remake” of the Iconic 1984 Apple fails miserably because Motorola do not understand the way the tech landscape has changed. The 1984 commercial was a chance to take the computer to a more human level. Back in 1984 there were many different systems but the big one was IBM and these computers were seen as mostly for work they were not consumer friendly, therefore, potential customers would not feel the implication that THEY were stupid for the bying choice THEY made.
That’s why Lemmings failed, thats why Get a Mac was designed to be about the platforms not the users.
Motorala is going to piss off other people they might have gotten to buy thier tablet by insulting thier demographic rather than trying to find a tangible benefit for the average user.
(The most probable reason I can think of for this ad campain is that Motorola can’t even think of a nontech-spec reason thier tablet is better, it certainly isn’t good user interface or industrial design.)
Magic Word “why” as in: Why did they think this was a good idea?
The biggest problem with all these rival tablet makers is a simple one.
They are all making tablets that look exactly like the ipad.
Now as a consumer, because the ipad was the first tablet that reached and created a mass Market if rival companies make similar looking products everyones 1st thought is that it is an apple ipad.
So in effect all these makes are actually increasing apples mindshare of the ipad.
If these companies want their tablets to be performed as a different product then they have to think ‘it mustn’t look like and ipad’.
IF they do this then people WILL notice their product more and it’s unique point of difference.
What a creepy yawner that is..
Totally pathetic ..
Looks like a cheap high school project. No professionalism!
@joe IOS was designed for the iPad. Work on the iPad started before the iPhone. By the way this is coming from a company that only makes phones. Honeycomb is still a version of android that is just a version of Linux, a failed desktop operating system.
@the other Steve. Yes this is really more simular to the 1985 lemmings ad then the 1984 ad. Pity Moto missed that part of history that would have told them that saying the vast majority of people, those using your competitors products, are mindless drones does not play well. Just points out that Apple is the dominant product and that Moto is a small desperate player.
I think the ad is very accurate. There’s about 1 XOOM sold for every 1000 iPads. Thanks Moto for reminding us how poorly your products have sold.
The real telling failure here is this. No one in the comercial is using a iPad. (probably because it would look too similar to the Xoom) Its not attacking a competing product or even its users. It’s not telling us why the Xoom is better then an iPad or any other android tablet. Its just attacking iPod users. ( you know that 80% of the worlds population )
You see white hooded drones and I see Klansmen. Strange fruit indeed…
Yo, no comments from ZuneTang???
This is right up his alley.
Bring it on, Moto-f*cking-rola!
I actually think Honeycomb looks interesting, but is it just me… in the video the guy is walking down the stairs, checks google maps (which you can do on an iPad) and realizes he is walking in COMPLETELY THE WRONG DIRECTION!
Now as a Mac/iOS user I am pretty sure I would not have been that screwed up in what direction I was walking.
Is that Buffy the vampire slayer?