Cloverfield (2008), and all its Nokia product placements
It was Sunday. Earlier in the week, I had planned a trip with my brothers to go on a road picnic somewhere far away. We were desperate to get out of the house, and go on breathe some fresh air. Also, it’s our chance to rest our ears from our Asian mom, who never stops finding things she said we could’ve done instead of watching endless YouTube tutorials — basically, like feeding the scary chickens, or other things we’re not capable of.
While the weather seems okay in the beginning, the rain suddenly poured down while we were all the way through the location. It was a very heavy rain, and we were soaking wet. So we decided to cancel the trip, and went home with all the goodies we got from grocery store.
Scanning through our endless film library, I found a copy of J.J Abram’s 2008 sci-fi/horror hit, Cloverfield. Bored, and without anything productive to do, the majority voted to revisit the film, which my younger brother, haven’t seen yet — he was like 5 when the film came out.
The film was shot found footage style, but it isn’t as boring as the Paranormal Activity movies. There’s a lot of high-octane action scenes, and every shot really takes you to the ground zero. But what really picked my interest is how many times I’ve seen a Nokia phone in the movie.
Sure, Nokia could afford product placement during this era — this was 2008 after all, just a year after the first iPhone came out. The effect of industry’s transition to “slate” mobile phones is not yet felt by Nokia, whilst Android is still in its infancy stage.
Of course, the cast are using Nokia phones as part of a product placement. But note that this is almost like the reality during this year. The iPhone is still nothing quite like anything it is today, and so Nokia feature phones are still on the top of everyone’s wishlist.
Watching this film, with the knowledge of its year of release, felt realistic and nostalgic at the same time. It was like watching a scene of life circa 2008 — albeit, a tragic one.
Most of the time, the Nokia’s are concealed in the crowd. But if you start focusing in each scene, you’ll get a quick glimpse of it.
First, we got a hit of Nokia 7373 when Rob, played by Michael Stahl-David, arrived at the party. Then, he used his own Nokia N76 during the time they took a refuge on the subway. Also, during this time, he sat down in front of a huge Nokia 5300 poster.
When I first saw this film few years back, these kind of things were unnoticeable. The use of Nokia phones was too common in real life to even care about it in the movie.
But now that a new era of mobile phone makers have filled the market Nokia once lost, you started to think about how great our childhood with Nokia had been. Things like this becomes a “whoah” moment, followed with stories like “Oh, my classmate had that, and we played games on it during each recess.”
Cloverfield (2008) is definitely a blast from the past. I had a great time watching it with my brothers. We ate a lot of food, and scared each other in the darkened scream-filled room, lit by the dizzying lights of the home theater.
I never intended to write this article before we played the movie, but I guess, the film had enough sentimental moments to not care about. 🙂
Anyway, Nokia Mobile also tried the same marketing technique with the recent James Bond movie. Unfortunately, COVID-19 delayed the film so much that it ruined Nokia Mobile’s marketing campaign.
If you are after Cloverfield (2008) reviews, you can find some at Rotten Tomatoes. If you have any good movie suggestions with Nokia product placements, freely share it in the comments down below. 🙂
