Posts tagged advertising
How the Old Spice Videos Are Being Made via ReadWriteWeb
Why the Verizon ‘Droid’ campaign is a huge miss
I came across this bit of funny recently:
“The Droid ad — which ends with the Verizon Wireless logo — highlights iPhone’s weaknesses, saying “iDon’t” have a real keyboard, a 5 megapixel camera, the ability to take photographs in the dark or the ability to run more than one application at the same time. It ends the ad by saying “Droid does.”” -Reuters
Why did I laugh? Because I’ve seen this before. Companies have been trying to challenge Apple on features for years. I’m not sure if it’s a product decision, or an advertising pitch, or where this comes from, but here we go again. Motorola is marketing its phones by taking on the iPhone head on, apparently by competing on features.
Remember the Creative Zen? Probably not. They tried to compete on features with the iPod too. The Zen was a clever device with a lot of things built in that were not in the iPod, but it ultimately got crushed because the Apple was easier to use and fulfilled their brand promise much better– namely that it was a fun way to listen to your music anywhere. Remember those great commercials? Remember any features?
The new battleground isn’t features, it’s user experience. User experience, as defined by Jesse James Garrett, is how the product behaves and is used in the real world.
Sound familiar? It’s how Apple does all their ads, and what they have in mind when they design their products. Apple has demonstrated a mastery of user experience, and of communicating how their technology fits into your life. The iPhone ads are filled with very clear visual examples of how your lifestyle will be fundamentally changed by having one. The benefit of being able to book a restaurant while you’re out, or not getting lost, or finding movie times. They’ve plucked pain points right out of our lives, and shown you how they no longer exist with an iPhone.
Now enter Motorola / Verizon, who apparently in their marketing research, uncovered that what people really want are ‘widgets’, 5 megapixel pictures, and open development. This is unfortunate on so many levels. What exactly is a widget to a cell phone consumer? I would think that people want a device that does what they need as quickly and easily as possible.
Maybe I’m missing the point here, but it doesn’t seem so far that Verizon is interested in selling to the mass consumer market. Thoughts?
megalomaniac
noun
1. a person who is obsessed with their own power.
2. a person who suffers delusions of their own power or importance.
I think it’s safe to say that despite a decent ad spend on bus shelters around Pittsburgh, this was an in-house design job. There’s nothing here telling me why to listen, and the only thing I notice is the founder’s head. It’s like make my logo bigger cream but even worse.
Nothing Sells Like Celebrity
– A very deep study of the impact of celebrity in advertising by the New York Times.
“”On average, five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy. It follows that unless your headline sells your product, you have wasted 90 percent of your money.
The headlines which work best are those which promise the reader a benefit–like a whiter wash, more miles per gallon, freedom from pimples, fewer cavities. Rifle through a magazine and count the number of ads whose headlines promise a benefit of any kind.
Headlines which contain news are sure-fire. The news can be the announcement of a new product, an improvement in an old product, or a new way to use an old product–like serving Campbell’s Soup on the rocks. On the average, ads with news are recalled by 22% more people than ads without news.
If you are lucky enough to have some news to tell, don’t bury it in your body copy, which nine out of ten people will not read. State it loud and clear in your headline. And don’t scorn tried-and-true words like amazing, introducting, now, suddenly.
