Jawbone Headsets Pummel, Asphyxiate and Mercilessly Murder Noise

Who knew Bluetooth technology had real teeth? At least in its advertising. Aliph decided to celebrate its latest Jawbone Bluetooth headset with a microsite featuring film shorts from director Sam Bayer. Each piece centers around Jawbone and its ability to eliminate outside noise—so you don’t have to worry about being disturbed by that pesky great white attack in the hotel pool or the two drunken rugby blokes making out next to you at the bar. Brilliant.

But one film really twisted my stomach into knot (see above). Here, an arrogant, racist businessman tears his elderly Chinese dry cleaner a new one right in front of his family, “Medium fucking starch,” he repeats over and over again, “You’re gonna starch my fucking shirt while I wait. Who says I don’t like Asians? Is it betta if I talka at choo lak dis? Oh yeah, me love you long time.”

We’re then interrupted by a ringing cell phone belonging to another patron sitting in the corner. As this second man puts on his Jawbone headset, we’re swept into his loving conversation with his wife while the dry cleaner’s teenage granddaughters jump over the counter towards the businessman, wrap a plastic laundry bag around his head, and administer the hardest, bloodiest, most graphic beatdown ever witnessed outside American History X. Mind you, the violence is completely mute and all we hear is the Jawbone conversation, “I’ve got a surprise for you, baby. I love you when you talk like that.”

I’m not sure if R-rated carnage is any way to sell Bluetooth headsets. In fact, I barely remembered what was being advertised. I was too busy being utterly offended by the businessman’s remarks, which was replaced by nausea at the sight of the his quivering face suffocating in a plastic bag. I know Aliph was trying to go for the shock factor here, but I think they kinda sorta stepped over that blood-soaked line. Is this what advertisers have to do just to be viral nowadays?

Don’t expect me to wait around for the backlash. I think I need a shower.

[P.S. - It's interesting that Aliph/Jawbone decided to host their films on a microsite versus YouTube. That's very BMW circa 2001 of them. I'm pretty sure the above YouTube clip was posted by someone unaffiliated with the campaign, so it would be interesting to compare the traffic between a film campaign done from a microsite versus one done on YouTube. On one hand Jawbonefilms.com is sexier and crisper, but YouTube is embeddable and more viral.]