By his own admission, Israel Dagg had a tough season on the field, but he’s been in top form when it comes to endorsing Samsung products. And, following on from the S5 Days clip that was released a few months back, he hit the streets of Chicago during the All Blacks’ recent visit to put the Gear S smartwatch through its paces.
Like the last campaign, this one was also shot by Augusto. And while there’s a high chance of awkwardness when products are gratuitously shoehorned into ‘real-life’, Dagg’s cheeky chappy charm, an engaging Uber driver and an impressive product helps limit that.
One of the limiting factors about Samsung’s previous wrist-based iteration, the Galaxy Gear, was that it needed to be within Bluetooth range of the motherphone to receive calls. But, as the clip below shows, the new model is a big step up in terms of connectivity and it “allows you to make/receive calls and messages even when away from your phone”, among many other things.
And here’s the official ad.
Wearables are obviously a big area of focus for the major tech companies (Google is currently developing a smart contact lens with Novartis and it’s not much of a stretch to think of Google Glass being in the eye rather than over it). Apple launched its Apple Watch a few months back (just don’t call it an iWatch) and the clip focused on the rise of the quantified self by showing off what it could do in terms of health monitoring (and integration with the iPhone). It also focused on the aesthetics of the new device and, given how pervasive Apple is, some of the existing players in the wearables market will probably be quivering in their boots.
