Zombies are hot right now, but not as hot as the guys and girls Boost has chosen to fight them in its new advertising campaign. Boost Mobile has created a sexy, stylised and hyperviolent new marketing campaign for its relaunched UNLTD pre-paid service, and it’s a very graphic way of getting people interested in a mobile phone brand. Does it go too far?
The ad campaign at its most uncensored features four heroes fighting to stay alive in the zombie apocalypse, and they’re all connected via their Boost Mobile phones. The three short films are all shot in Sydney and they look pretty goddamn schmick. We have embedded them below (be warned, they’re NSFW).
There are going to be two types of reaction to this campaign: outrage, and nonchalance: a politically correct side and a “f**k-yeah zombies” side.
The overly PC side of the coin will complain that the video is way too gratuitous in its attitude towards pretty girls, addicted to hyperviolence in its treatment of the zombies and has little to no relevance to the brand.
The f**k-yeah, zombies crowd, however, can counter that pretty easily. The so-called gratuity inherent in the short clips are nothing compared to what you can find in any number of music videos these days (take Robin Thicke’s insanely-NSFW “Blurred Lines” clip, for example), you only need to look as far as last week’s episode of Game Of Thrones to see that hyperviolence has become the new norm and its use of zombies in a marketing campaign is just staying relevant with what people are watching on TV these days.
The videos also come in two flavours: censored and uncensored. The uncensored versions come with giant red “UNRATED” warnings on the front, foreshadowing the gore, sexuality and horror to follow. That’s a pretty decent Get Out Of Jail Free card as far as I can see.
Personally I have a foot in both camps: sure it’s fun to see zombies attack my home city but at times it does stray into over-the-top, Tarantino-style gratuity, both in the violence and sexuality. At the end of the day, it’s not about whether this campaign will sell phones, it’s about making Boost hip to the Gen Y kids it’s targeting. So far, it’s doing pretty well.
What do you think? Too gratuitous or right on the money? Let us know in the comments.