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And the folks at Nokia are very smart for putting this multi-use tool in the hands of the attendees of the Cannes Lions Ad festival.

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As I was walking around the festival, there was a new camera in a lot of hands. The first thing to notice was the incredibly thin body. Then the big honking piece of glass on the front of it.
Finally , I stopped a couple of young creatives carrying 2 of these, who explained the deal;
It wasn’t a camera…well, it was kinda. And a video camera. Oh yeah, and a phone.
The 27 teams of the Young Lions Creative competition at Cannes were given this unit to use in an assignment shot within a 24 hour period.
OR
By giving Nokia a credit card deposit of 1000 Euro (gulp) any festival attendee can get this camera phone for about 24 hours. Once you return it, they own everything you shot using the camera.

OK, sounds like a great way for them to get some original content for an advertising campaign. Or research. For free.

I know, most phones today do all of that good stuff, but the question is how well does it do any of it ? Sometimes the more stuff you through in, each part gets compromised. We’ll see.

And the cool factor of the units’ look, only further tantalized the sign ups.

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Like we said, very smart people.

Heres how they laid it out:

The Young Lions Competition takes place during the famous Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, the “Oscars of advertising”, from June 15-21, 2008. Based on a brief from an organization chosen by the festival, 27 creative teams will use their Nokia Nseries device to shoot and edit a 60-second viral film within 48 hours. The winners will be announced on June 21. Nokia Nseries handsets will also be used for collecting footage of the teams in action that will be shared in video blogs at www.nseries.com/cannes.

Open to advertising professionals up to 28 years of age, the Young Lions Competition gathers creative teams from around the world. The participating teams have been selected through a pre-selection process in their own country, with the winners attending Cannes.

Nokia will also create ‘The Cannes Experiment’, a creative hub in the Palais de Festivals that will give those attending the Festival the opportunity to play with some customized Nokia Nseries devices and have their work featured as part of a globally televised program that is being shot with same Nokia Nseries devices. There will also be masterclasses on how to use the devices as part of the creative process, including using them to shoot images or video in unique ways.”

It’s always interesting though, when someone describes something as a viral video.
The only time a video on the internet is viral is when people pass it around because there is something compelling in that video to share.
Otherwise its just another video on the web.
Agreed?
Looking forward to seeing what they come up with.
It would really be cool if Nokia did this with photographers and videographers too.
What do you think?