By Malay Desai
From: 72&Sunny, Amsterdam
A family is shown setting up a new curved television in their drawing room. From the perspective of the TV, they are then depicted in various moods and positions on the couch, watching different shows at different times of the day and night. Together and in different pairs, they watch comic shows, dramas and movies, often talking, commenting and chatting. The film winds up with the daughter running to the loo in the midst of a film, while everyone else ranting about pausing it. ‘All the stuff you really, really love deserves a better TV’, the copy on the television screen says.
Why we like ?
In case you were too busy streaming on your phones and tablets this year, here’s some news from the realm of the bigger screen – televisions have come a full circle, from being bulged to flat to curved toward you.
The Samsung Curved UHD 4k TV costs anything upwards of 250k, and if you’re among its potential buyers, you won’t probably take a decision without asking an expert or looking up online reviews. This film, made for the Dutch market, however, will ensure you probe the matter well.
This is the first commercial about a television I’ve watched that doesn’t speak anything about its features, despite having a dozen USPs to pick from. But I’m not complaining, what would the brand tell me in 80 seconds that a blog or site won’t, in the hours I spend on them if I were a potential buyer?
The film rather focuses, and quite simply in terms of production, on the immersive capabilities of the new guest of the home. The experiences that the family has, in pairs or alone or together, at various times of the day tell the story well. Great ‘television’(i.e. the content) soaks its viewers in, shocks them and makes them laugh… and forget about how awkwardly they are sitting.
Nobody’s really thinking about how fancy the TV ‘set’ is.It’s incredible that there is hardly any screen time given to the product itself here, and yet we know so much about what it can do to a living room’s life.
The random conversations between the folkshave a global appeal, and every urban family will relate to moments such as LOL-ing at once or reacting to drama or pausing during a critical moment because one of us has to go pee. TV was social before it turned ‘social,’ wasn’t it?
TV megabrandsare operating in an age of fantastic television shows, and must sell social experiences to battle the Internet, which is all about lonesome viewing. Samsung has done a fine job for the cause.
Thing is, the day I save up (the heart to spend) 250k, Samsung will unveil another marvel that would cost many more Ks.
To watch the film,type‘bit.ly/Dec22TVC’in your browser
SOCiAL NEWSFEED
Of terror and Twitter
I feel for the folks at Twitter.Inc who had wound up on their yearender videos that mentioned the biggest highlights of the year (read snippet below), knowing little that perhaps the most heart-warming story would unfold in the final fortnight of 2014 . Following and during the Sydney siege last week, as fears of anti-Muslim actions grew in the city, a Twitter user @sirtessa suggested ‘I’ll ride with you’ to those fearing to take public transport in their religious attire. The hashtag soon turned into a movement of solidarity, and said much about an evolved urban society using a social network to promote brotherhood. Closer home, as we tried to come to terms with the heart-wrenching murder of Pakistani children, a columnist @tehseenp began the #IndiawithPakistan movement, which meant much to hapless citizens across the border at a time of mindless dehumanization. For all the vicious trolling we have witnessed this year, these two hashtags more than made it up for Twitter.
UNO likes this
Twitter’s biggest year so far
And now for the yearender that Twitter has been celebrating from over a fortnight, especially the India office. It’s expectedly been the network’s biggest year so far, with our market assuming a larger significance. The election year meant thousands of opinions (and trolls) flew around, and @narendramodi’s winning tweet on May 16 became the most RT-ed tweet ever in India. If the elections raked up 60 million tweets in all, our millions pumped up the volume on global events too – there was a football world cup, the Oscar mega-selfie (and hundreds of other insignificant selfies), the ISIS debate, George Clooney’s marriage, Robin Williams’s death and the Malaysian Airline disappearance among other events. Personally, I have liked how Twitter has evolved to more business-friendly, in allowing to create promotions more easily and giving simple analytics. Here’s to an
even bigger 2015!
Jack Dorsey likes this
Can you take a break from social media?
‘Take a break from technology’ stories are the new ‘Plan a fitter New Year’ storiesduring this time of the year, and you might be coming across discussions and experiments ironically, on the interwebs. But most ‘tech detox’ suggestions do not really focus on decreasing your social media use while using some devices. Instead of putting your phones and tablets away and risk being untraceable and unprofessional, one can, with immense will-power and determination (where’s the sarcasm font when I need it?), delete the social apps, disconnect from email services and possibly, use the phone like it’s 2002. Due to occupational hazards, I might not be able to do it for long, but I totally want to experiment for a day (or more, if the world doesn’t end.) Will you do it too?
Christopher McCandless would have liked this
