In this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death, taxes and the Japanese propensity for having the most bizarro adverts in existence. Camera manufacturers are no exception, and it appears that Fujifilm has commissioned some some truly perplexing commercials over the years.
Marketing for cameras is of course going to be inclined towards the artsy side of things. Your audience wants to see the camera in action or at least get an idea of what it can do. It’s also natural that there will be inventive ways convey a sense of meaning around the product. However, there’s a clear line where being imaginative ends and being utterly batshit loopy begins. When it comes to Fujifilm it appears that their local Japanese regional sales strategy falls way beyond that line on a regular basis.
/Fujifilm /Playground /Vimeo
It is hard to pick a clear winner for the title of most perplexing promotional video that Fujifilm has ever produced. I can’t quite decide between the advert for the X70 where a grown woman dressed as a cat, sits in an alley licking herself clean and the ad comparing the rough and tumble aesthetic of the X-T10 to being in a biker gang that beats and murders people.
/Fujifilm /kokel /Vimeo
After much deliberation, however, the prize has to go to 2011’s Fujifilm Finepix X100 promotional effort. The video mixes black and and white and colour footage, clips of homeless people eating out of dumpsters, slightly graphic sex involving a tattooed Yakuza member, images of gravestones, and old ladies smiling at the camera.
/Fujifilm /hk10adloversinc1990a /YouTube
But the key factor here is the voiceover. You simply cannot have obnoxious introspective pretentiousness without ominous narration, and this one’s a doozy. Voiced like a menacing Japanese version of Jeff Bridges after a three day bender, it doesn’t so much entice you to buy photographic equipment as make you want to hide in a small cupboard. Thanks to the help of YouTube user partypao we know it translates as such:
Like a stray dog, I take pictures here and there
If you call a photograph a record, I say it's more of a memory
The story, Someday will be gone
But the memory will remain forever
The by-gone days will be felt close-by
A Picture, those who take, and those taken through the work of the lens,
Furthermore, add the camera, That is a threesome right?
I wonder If this world is just a graveyard
I wonder if I’m still alive.
Or as one Reddit community member sums it up:
We’re glad that communities like Reddit exist to share these easily-lost works of madness in sales. There is something marvelous about the depressing offbeat insanity of the X100’s push to shift units with hobo lunches and death. We may not understand why Fujifilm produces content like this, but like hell do we ever want them to stop. You do you, Fuji.
. digitalrev.com2016-10-26 03:00
