By Nimish Dubey
We have seen our share of celebrities who do not seem to know a thing about the products they are endorsing - remember Kevin Costner poking apprehensively at a Mac? - but Lewis Hamilton seems to have added a new dimension to “endorser naivete” with his performance in the TV commercial for the much-hyped BlackBerry Storm.
The world knows that Lewis is a tiger in a F1 car, so it is a shock to see him come across as remarkably tame, even nervous, when talking of the Storm, a device that many hoped would challenge the “Godphone.” Instead he barely stares at the camera and looks frankly sheepish as he points out that his phone has all his calendar and contacts and that he can send e-mails from it. He then shows the speaker at the back of the device and points out that he can store music and albums on the phone and of course can see photographs and videos of his car. He rounds it all off by muttering that he is excited about his phone!
Duh!
Hamilton may be a terrific F1 driver but if the ad is anything to go by, he knows next to nothing about phones. The features that he describes can be found in just about any mid-segment phone today. The folks at RIM need to be given an award in making the worst possible use of a star endorser. There is no talk of the Storm’s interface - the clickable touchscreen that is the USP of the device. Was it that bad?
