January 9, 2011
MEET ZOLL.

Samsung has a new spokestween/mascot named "Zoll." He is an androgynous 11 year old who likes to dance and twirl, and he wears a wolf hoodie for some reason. He was introduced three days ago at the International Consumer Electronics Show during Samsung's keynote. You should read or at least skim Engadget's liveblog of it, because it all kinds of amazing.

This is one of the "teasers" they played beforehand:

And here's a video of him talking:

Move over, Geico gecko. Zoll is my new favorite advertisting character. I love everything about him - the coy way he looks at us as he sits and spins at the end of the first video; the way he keeps running away from the camera for some reason in the second; the way he says "UN, PLEASE," which is the cool new way to say "turn off," apparently. Then there's his name, which is both a SUPER-SUBTLE textualization of 2011 and a modern-futurist respelling of "Joel" (I'm reminded of this scene from The Simpsons). Samsung has really captured the Generation Z zeitgeist in this kid. He is a cross between Justin Bieber, Max from Where The Wild Things Are, and The Noid. I'm going to try to collect every video of him I can find and put them in this playlist. Every moment in those videos is just screaming out to be made into a Tumblr gif. I don't want to jinx anything but I think Zoll could be the new fourthmeal.