Nick is a photography student...

'Nick is a photography student', so begins the advert for the HTC One X smartphone currently showing at a cinema or TV near you. In the ad Nick Jojola is on an assignment. It's his first fashion shoot and he has to free fall from a plane and take a photo of a model all at the same time. What's more, he's only got a smartphone to do it on. 

Good grief, what kind of course is Nick on if they give him this for an assignment. Maybe his lecturer just doesn't like him. I can see why he might not do. What's worse for poor Nick is that he's got this incredibly hard assignment where a good photo is going to be almost impossible to get, and all they've given him to do it is a phone. Talk about making life difficult for the guy. Still, he's accepted the assignment, probably figuring the money he'll get from it will either help to clear his student loan or make it something he doesn't have to care about anymore, and he's now in a plane and about to jump.

What happens next? He jumps and not only a model, but a whole camera crew, follow him out of the plane, filming them from every different angle. Just what equipment are they using, and how much more of a challenge are they facing compared to Nick? All he's got to worry about is his phone.

Luckily for Nick he gets his photo, unluckily for Nick the picture he gets is of a model who looks like a Lady Gaga tribute act wearing a large puffa jacket and goggles. What kind of fashion shoot is this, and just who was it who ever thought that at that sort of height and with that sort of wind behind her, the finer details of her clothing would not get lost. I don't know much about photography or fashion shoots, but I guess that if you want to show off an item of clothing at its best, then taking a picture of it when you and the person wearing it are falling at a rate of knots from a height of God knows how high, is not going to be the way to do it. Get the model in the studio, and if you want a wind effect get a fan behind her, it's far easier and far safer.

But of course, Nick and the makers of the phone aren't doing this to show off the clothing, they're doing this to show you the potential of the phone and the fact that you can take a good picture with it while free falling from a plane. That's good to know, because there is no other way most of us will ever find out this information. I mean, how many of us will ever say to the wife or girlfriend 'I know what we'll do this weekend, we'll get in a plane, jump out of it, and take a photo'? And if we do ask that, what are the odds on the answer being 'okay, I'll get my coat'?  I'm guessing they'll be as high as Nick's plane is.

It's for this reason that the fact that the phone can do what it does is completely irrelevant. No one will want to do it. I'd be more likely to buy the phone if the advert showed Nick Jojola going to Brixton Academy on a Saturday night and getting a decent photo of whoever's on the stage without the head of a very large man appearing sometime between him pressing the button and the shot being captured. That would make me want to part with my money.

Whoever came up with the idea for this advert is a person who symbolises everything that is wrong with advertising. It's style over substance, very flashy, very clever, very annoying and totally useless. Congratulations Mr Jojola on getting a photo of a woman hurtling to the ground in some very expensive clothes that might as well be bin liners for all we can make out of them, but if you want to do it again please don't feel the need to get someone to film it and make an advert out of it.  And good luck with your course!