Does The Droid-X Blockbuster OnDemand Commercial Make Sense?

Posted on August 28, 2010 by 8bitjeff

I have seen this commercial quite a few times and have always had a little “itch” in the back on my mind as I see it. I didn’t have much time to ponder this “itch” until this morning.

I can’t find the commercial on-line (but I see it in online video pre-rolls all the time, especially on the Comedy Central Site). The commercial shows a dude, sitting in from of some HUGE Apple iMac-like monitors (presumably at work?) as he watches “giant” (as described in the commercial) Blockbuster onDemand video on his mobile Droid-X phone.

Note: I found the commercial. It looks like the guy is using Windows. In the final cut away shot his other monitor does look like a 36 inch iMac. In any case, especially since he is in Windows, why watch the onDemand on his tiny mobile screen?

What’s wrong with this picture? Why would he watch the video on a relatively tiny mobile screen (tiny in comparison to the 36 inch iMac monitors right next to him?). This was really bugging me because I would much rather watch the Bourne Supremacy (the movie he is watching in the commercial) in HD wide-screen on one of those giant iMac monitors next to him.

So, I ventured over to the Blockbuster site to have a look at the onDemand library on my iMac, and this is the message I get:

So, it seems they left some of the story out of the commercial. That dude first tried to watch the video on the giant iMac screen in front of him, but since Blockbuster’s site won’t work with any operating system other than Windows (plus IE or IE + Firefox bastardization tab) he got frustrated, pulled out is mobile device and was able to see the video there.

Wow, that makes sense now.

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  • Anonymous

    It’s weird to think that we’re entering an era where a phone can do more than a PC. For my entire life, it’s been ludicrous to think that the PC could ever go obsolete, but well, maybe they will ….

    ( I mean obviously macs will go obsolete, but I mean the whole idea of having a computer on your desk )

  • http://www.8bitrocket.com 8bitjeff

    =) I have to admit I really like Windows 7. Plus, Apple seems to be focusing on ruining the phone experience more than making a good computer these days…

  • roger

    Being always a mile behind the rest of civilization, I don’t have a cellphone. I do have a 21.5 inch widescreen monitor, though, and have actually made it to DSL. I could afford a cheap cellphone for emergencies or something, but that’s about it. I ordered one a while back but it looked like it came out of a cereal box and the battery wouldn’t take a charge, so I decided to skip it and stick with my land line. I guess if I was constantly on the go I might get used to a smartphone, but they seem so tiny and people are paying as much as my combined DSL/phone line for it, and I live in the country where it’s more expensive for DSL.

  • Anonymous

    “…Apple seems to be focusing on ruining the phone experience…”

    It just occurred to me, what if that is exactly what they’re doing? Purposely distributing phones without key features so that they will fail to replace their MP3 players and computers. Pushing HTML5 so that they can say “the new one will be better” for the next 25 years. Then they create the artificial life-form “Steve Jobs” and program it to believe that this is actually a good idea and to convince the ignorant masses of the same.

  • Jason Michael

    Maybe he also didn’t want the network admin to “see” him watching videos at work, over the company network.

  • http://www.8bitrocket.com 8bitjeff

    That is probably the case.

  • Barbeequeue

    I think the big picture is being missed. He doesn’t appear to be sitting in his home office but is in a sexy high-rise and is at work, as is the case for most of us, he knows his usage is being monitored, and rather than risk his job, he pulls out his hot new Droid X.

    • http://www.8bitrocket.com 8bitjeff

      I think you are right…since I am getting a Droid next week I will let everyone know how Netflix works on it…