ALWAYS connected
- Simone Maas
- 31 okt 2015
- 3 minuten om te lezen
In my free time I like to watch YouTube-videos. Of course that comes with watching some commercials as well because there is simply no way to dodge them. Normally I don’t mind watching those few seconds of advertisement, I don’t really pay attention. About ago I saw a weird commercial of a prepaid brand ‘Vodaphone’ that suddenly popped up before every video. When I had probably seen it 20 times I got pretty annoyed by it for another reason, I couldn’t believe the message, the way it made our society look. Was it an honest representation of the truth or a ridiculous joke? This question kept bothering me.
What is it? Vodaphone is a brand that sells phone credit (for calling and texting) and data bundles (for surfing on the internet). Together with two well known YouTubers Kelvin and Peter they created this new commercial ‘Vodaphone YOU-Power to the Prepaid People’. It came out the 20th of august 2015 and is since then popping up on television and at your phone, tablet and computerscreen. The commercial explains that people nowadays always want to be connected with the world around them and that you can’t do that when you ran out of data. Therefore they have a new service that provides you with extra MB’s beside your data bundle so that you can stay connected. Running out of data is a well-known problem because we spend more and more time on our phones. According to research from the beginning of this year 91% of the dutch citizens (older than 13 years old) use the internet and they spend a average time of 2 hours online everyday. In the video you see a boy, twenty-something years old, at different locations but at all times focussed on his phone and his phone only. That’s is the thing that bothers me. Can someone really be connected with the world around him when all he can have attention for is a mobile device? Even at a the end of the commercial when the voice-over says that you can ‘get tickets for a festival with your friends’, two people are sitting next to each other on a bench without any real life contact at all. Is this really what our world has become like?
Why is it cool? Vodaphone is quite a famous brand so this commercial will reach a large amount of people. They especially focus on reaching the youth because they show different advantages that come with the extra data bundle such as discounts on sneakers and festival tickets. Those things are extractive for our generation. Still that is not what makes this commercial interesting. The video pokes fun at the reality, at least that is probably what they were trying to do. But maybe this image of people living their lives through their phones is not even that far from the truth. I am not the only one who has been thinking about that. in the comment section underneath the commercial on YouTube I found a diverse range of reactions, from people who find it ridiculous to people who can’t see the problem of using your phone everywhere all day long. I guess some find it normal already and in the future it will become rather the rule than the exception.
I would link this commercial to the trend Togetherness & Inline because it paints a picture of a world were we are online every second of the day. It suggests that running out of data is a real problem. Even though the video is probably just making fun of the reality, it shows how dependent we have come on the internet. Everybody will have a different opinion on the message it sends but for me, it makes me wonder if being online really benefits our lives.
What sources did I use?
http://www.nederlandsmedianieuws.nl/media-nieuws/Vodafone-lanceert-Vodafone-YOU-met-campagne-Power-to-the-Prepaid-People.html (afbeelding 1)
Always wonder,
Simone
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