I've been watching a very interesting Lance-less Tour De France this year and while the advertisements tend to be quite repetitive, there a few worth note. Specifically, the spots for the Land Rover Discovery (above) and Michelob Ultra (below) both coincidentally play heavily on the gestural/touch trend in user interfaces.
In the Land Rover ad, the entire screen appears to be a giant tablet, with an on-screen hand swiping, tapping and dragging to change the background that the Land Rover is driving through.
While the Land Rover spot goes for smoothness and elegance, the Michelob ad (not surprisingly), is more about fun and cleverness. The characters in this commercial use gestures to change physical characteristics of their world for their benefit - like sliding to a higher office floor for a better view. Incidentally, Michelob has other versions, for example, featuring Lance Armstrong.
The coincidental timing of these advertisements certainly indicates that touch screen gestural interactions have reached the mainstream consciousness and that marketers can count on the gestures alone being recognizable without the context of a smart phone or tablet device.
...And while we're at it, the best ad I've been seeing douring the Tour is for the Nissan Leaf, showing a world where everything is powered by gas (even laptop computers, and the Chevy Volt shown in the ad). While not touch screen-related, its worth viewing:
