An advertisement is designed to entrance you into giving away your money — but in Samsung’s case, this Note ad is actually a concise, persuasive reason why you should never buy a Note.
The ad itself is a standard test test shtick — an underpaid actor/”ordinary woman on the street” sees how her [insert competitor product] stacks up against [advertised product], happily realising how superior the latter is and understanding the error of her ways. Fin, happy ending. I can’t believe I’ve been missing out on Ovaltine all along!
In this case, a Samsung-hired shill who has clearly spent a lot of time with the Note goes up against the poor Ordinary Street Woman in an attempt to make her iPhone look inadequate. There will be a trial of three tests — the victor must be purchased, the loser, banished from these shores. Draw your stylus, sir!
Test 1: “Create a customised message, really personal, nice, fun, big, bright, happy, something’s really gonna make their day.”
Alllright. Stylus Bro declares he’s going to put his face on his little brother’s favourite basketball player, which would sort of freak me out if I were a little kid, but anyway. After some deft video editing — poof — the Note is awkwardly resizing the guy’s clipped mug. Never mind that pinching would have made made for much easier resizing, as opposed to manually tapping the corners of the image, which looks infuriating. Too late! iPhone Female, dumbfounded and shriek-y, whines that her phone only has emoji, which are awesome. Exclusive: there are zero image editing apps for any electronic device that is not the Galaxy Note.
Test 2: “Draw directions on a map.”
Well, this is just dumb. Of course the Note, with its stylus, does a better job at draw lines on a Google map, to help a friend find their way around. And of course, this is an entirely absurd exercise, as the entire point of Google Maps is not needing to figure out directions on your own. What possible utility does this serve? “Hey, I’m going to draw a smiley face over the restaurant for tonight. And then email it to you. Check your email and then look for the smiley face. I’ve also drawn some lines highlighting dangerous parts of the neighbourhood — beware.”
Samsung has actually shown off a task that makes using a half-decade old smartphone technology more difficult. I’m sure the Note is also better than the iPhone at handwritten emails, drawing text messages, and writing giant Xs over websites you dislike.
Test 3: The Note can edit PowerPoint documents, and the iPhone can’t, which is a lie.
By the end, our woman in red is hysterical. “My phone can do nothing his phone can do! Nothing! I can’t do anything!” She adds that she’s “upset and embarrassed” by the entire gauntlet, which is actually a great tagline for the Note, should Samsung need more advertising help.