Comment by Coeur

8 hours ago

This seems to be part of a type of brand marketing where a brand claims it has invented something, but the only thing that ever exists of significant economic value is the attention raised by the promo video / article. Not the thing/service.

Examples:

- Samsung safety truck https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GNGfse9ZK8

- Citroën motion sickness glasses https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aco63dlq_WE

- Amazon Prime Air https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AVVTBmtDdo

- IBM Smart Ads https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbEMVdzXiCY (implies they created lots of ad posters, but they only made 3 posters for this video)

- Lexus Hoverboard https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFf7Meqkim8

I wonder if there is a term for this. "Vaporware marketing"?

I love these types of videos because they create this fiction of how design happens, where people sit around a table with drawings and or come up with beautiful mock-ups (the motion sickness glasses is a good example). Often, a lot of design decisions are super obvious and don't require a lot of sweat and collaboration to come up with, but in videos they're made to appear very difficult as it presents better. And other things are super messy, but you're not going to show that as it's hard to communicate.

Any innovation benefiting cyclists and coming from the auto industry is a way to move attention away from the fact that cars are the most dangerous thing on the road.

  • Well, obviously. What else did you expect to be the most dangerous thing on roads? Sharks?