Posts Tagged: verizon

advertising / creative / strategy — 11 Comments
7
Dec 09

Droid plays the testosterone card

[Sorry, the commercial referenced here has disappeared from YouTube]

Enough of the teasers. The first real ad in the Droid assault is now among us. And assault turns out to be a pretty good descriptor — because everything about this spot is amped to extremes, from strategy and script to images and editing.

What this effort probably needed most, however, was some adult supervision.

Every agency wants to start with the most unexpected, out-there ideas. Nothing’s taboo. The theory is that you can always pull creative back, but you can’t amplify something that isn’t there. But then you start developing. And when you’re about to enter the world’s hottest category, battling the much-loved iPhone, risking market share and millions of dollars, you’d think that some responsible person might have politely raised a hand and said: “are you nuts?”

It’s as if the agency, followed by Verizon, Google and Motorola, developed this ad in an alternate reality —  where design doesn’t matter, women want to be men and writers are paid by the adjective. What we get is a whole fleet of runaway trains.

It’s a male-only strategy in a category that’s 50% female. It’s a spot that attacks iPhone for the very reason it’s succeeded — great design. It’s a script that is so desperately cool, it’s juvenile. Worst of all, it’s a launch that presents a smartphone without any smart — offering no benefit other than speed. In that sense, it’s actually less of an ad than the teaser was.

I’m all for chipping away at iPhone’s armor. But allowing your inner pubescent to attack iPhone as “a tiara-wearing, digitally clueless beauty queen” or “a precious porcelain figurine of a phone” reveals a disturbing cluelessness.

It’s hard to imagine any woman outside of the WWE who’d appreciate this ultra-male tone. At the DroidDoes.com website, the slide continues: we get mechanical design presented by a flesh-and-blood android so smarmy, you want to slap him. (Extra points for integration!)

The good news for Droid is, misguided marketing isn’t always fatal. Maybe the device will sell well by its own merits and the superiority of the Verizon network. Who knows, maybe Droid will ultimately cut through iPhone’s lead “like a circular saw through a ripe banana.”

advertising / creative / strategy — 16 Comments
25
Nov 09

Apple gets a little tetchy

Uh oh. I’m sensing a disturbance in The Force.

This is one of two new spots that just started running for iPhone. Both are doing something iPhone has never done before: they’re responding to an alarm. It seems that Verizon is scoring points with their relentless pounding of the widely disliked AT&T network, and it’s getting hard to ignore.

These commercials put up a decent defense but, unsurprisingly, they feel a bit defensive.

The network vs. network argument is actually a distraction for Apple. Because when they talk about the network, they stop talking about their truly monstrous advantage — 100,000 apps. They’re reduced to claiming simultaneous voice and data capability. In this sub-debate, whose advantage would you really prefer? Apple’s simultaneous thing, or Verizon’s vastly larger network that doesn’t drop calls?

Both of the new iPhone spots give us examples of AT&T’s “superiority,” then deliver the punch line: Can your phone and your network do that? The challenging, inelegant tone actually feels more like Verizon than Apple.

To be honest, I find it odd that Apple is even suiting up for this fight. The crummy network is AT&T’s fault. If the ship is springing a few leaks, I’d expect Apple to fire off a note to AT&T: “If you really love me, you’ll go beat up Verizon for me.” Who knows, maybe they’ve gone back and forth on that one.

Whatever their mission, Apple’s creative standards can’t be compromised. If they feel it’s important to go toe-to-toe with Verizon on the network issue, they have to find an Apple-like way to do that. They’ve pummeled their foe masterfully in the Mac vs. PC campaign. Surely they can find a way to slap Verizon around — and entertain us along the way.