Somebody Else's Phone: Would You Look Through It?

Somebody Else’s Phone: Would you Look Through It? If you found somebody else's phone, would you look through it? That’s a rhetorical question. Of course! Your phone is your life, at least if you’re under 25, and there’s nothing more interesting than the “Lives of Others.”

Wieden + Kennedy London translated the idea of “Cellular Oversharing” into a much gushed-about advertising campaign for Nokia. "Somebody else’s phone" depicts the lives of three twenty-something’s through their text messages, MMS, and pictures, and it essentially creates a new story format: the phone novel. Fusing scripted content with real life audience interaction, the campaign runs in ten different languages, following the characters’ evolving storylines through a 24/7 feed of content, across three time zones, over 6 weeks.

Nice idea although the Luon blog comments: “Sometimes it feels a bit like trying too hard. The advertising-tries-to-be-socially-smart’ thing, where it's not clear what is real and what is fake.” But that’s exactly the point. Fake authenticity -- I’ve already written about “Mad Men” on Twitter in this context -- is a burgeoning trend. Fake is fine as long as it feels real. We’ll see more of it in 2009.