What's an appropriate visual metaphor for an app that lets you scan handwritten notes to your smartphone? If you're U.K. stationery brand Oxford, it's a drone that follows you everywhere, lugging your paper notebooks.
In this new video from gyro Paris, flying reams of study materials distract, haunt and taunt a bunch of stylish teens. All that to promote Oxford's SOS Notes app, which lets users scan Oxford notebooks and save them to various devices as .pdf files.
Setting aside whether that's a task that really needs its own app, it's hard not to wonder if Oxford should really sell it as an oppressive, inescapable nuisance. Then again, that's probably how most students feel about their homework already. And theoretically, the product is actually making their lives easier—mostly by reducing work to share notes with friends, but also by lightening their physical load, while they, say, skateboard.
That makes the playful, unencumbered tone of the clip fit pretty nicely—even if it does seem weird for Oxford to introduce this new element of its brand as an extension of the surveillance state. The kids would probably roll their eyes at that kind of handwringing, though, then hop on a hoverboard and high five a robot.
And in fairness, it looks like it must have been a lot of fun to shoot, given the fleet of drones. Interrupting a make-out session is just rude, though.
CREDITS
Brand: Oxford
Agency: gyro Paris
Executive Creative Director: Sebastien Zanini, Pierre-Marie Faussurier
Art Director: Aurelie Casimiri
Copywriter: Margaux Castanier
Business Director: Rebecca Cremonini
Account Executive: Marion Lasselin
Head of Strategy: Evelyne Bourdonne, Zoe Sabourdy
Media Strategist: Pascal Deneuter
TV Production: Yelena Nikolic
Director: Romain Quirot
Production Company: Fat Cat
