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Just in case there are any of you who, like me, did not catch the Oscars broadcast last night and haven't seen the new iPhone commercial that aired, I thought I'd toss a link up here... also it was a great excuse to put a JPG of The Dude in a post here on Zoom In.

I thought the ad was fantastic. Obviously, it was perfectly suited for the oscars, (my best-dressed-in-the-iphone-ad nod goes to Audrey Tautou from Amélie without question), but the ad is great because while it was apropos, it stands alone as an excellent spot wherever and whenever it gets run. It's one of those times where you don't even see the product till the end of the spot and you don't even care what the product is while you're enjoying the show. You're playing along, guessing, trying to snag actor names, movie titles, all the while enjoying the sound of the cleverly edited and brilliantly chosen "hello" moments from a ton of great performances... then suddenly it's like "ahh cool, ok it's Apple. Of course." At least that's what I said when it was over. John Appleseed: nice touch.

As I think about it I enjoy it even more. "Hello" is one of the most prevalent words in our culture, most of us say it every sinlgle day. It's intrinsic to the advertised product (it being a phone) and it was also the word displayed on the first Mac at that old keynote (as it were) from 1984 so it's an ultimately "Apple" type of word to use. Even more than that, we are watching all these fine actors and actresses read the exact same line of dialogue - with a wealth of context and nuance supplied by the specific trappings of the shot, the set, the movie itself, the other actors, the setting, the costumes, the colors... and the best thing of all is that the telephones they are all using in each clip are a scrapbook journey through the evolution of telephone technology and it simply grants Apple's new product "it's rightful place" in that lineage. It's awesome when a campaign can do all of those things at once.

Just brilliant. Nice job guys.

Goodbye.