Superbowl Ad Confirms BlackBerry 10 Can’t Turn Trucks Into Rubber Duckies

BlackBerry 10’s first Superbowl commercial squeaked in right before a power outage delayed the game for 34 minutes. Instead of focusing on what the new OS can do, however, the 30-second spot showed what it can’t do: trigger spontaneous combustion, make users disappear in a puff of colorful smoke and then magically reappear out of manholes, or turn out-of-control tanker trucks into a giant, harmless pile of rubber ducks.

In a press statement, BlackBerry chief marketing officer Frank Boulben said:

“In our debut appearance at the Super Bowl we knew that it wasn’t feasible to communicate the rich experience of BlackBerry 10. We decided to use the light hearted spirit of Super Bowl ads to showcase what BlackBerry 10 can’t do. We wanted to let people know that BlackBerry is back and that BlackBerry 10 is worth checking out.”

The ad was created by agency AMV BBDO. Perhaps they would have been better off using Twitter to bid on “power outage” as a search term, which one advertiser did just four minutes after the outage began.