Verizon’s anti-iPhone campaign is still on its way and is coming now to print, in Sports Illustrated to be precise. This time it looks like Verizon is holding its line but has slightly changed the tone to make it sound much like “The Droid is proudly fighting Apple’s tyranny.”
They also dropped the network superiority line this time.
Here is the actual text of the ad:
This is a world of “nope,” “nuh-uh,” and “sorry, Charlie.”
A world of smiling denial. Petty tyrannies that have made their way into our cell phones. Into the very way we choose to speak to another human being. There are dozens of doesn’ts. Doesn’t allow customization. Doesn’t run multiple apps. Doesn’t allow you to swap out batteries. Doesn’t allow open development. These arrogant little devices are barely worth more than the pocket lint they rest upon. Because now there’s a phone so smart. so strong. So subservient to its user, it refuses to include “doesn’t” in its dictionary app.
In a world of doesn’t. Droid Does.
I think it’s particularly interesting to see how Verizon is actually segmenting the market and addressing it in specific ways.
They address the younger consumers with “There is a map for that” during Gossip Girl, tech-savy users with ”Stealth”-like planes launching droid embedded missiles on the Internet and finally at Sports Magazines readers with aggressive and running on a grass root texts.
What they are writing sounds more to me like a frustrating discussion with a not-too-friendly Apple Store vendor than reality. What do you think?
[via CNET]
Verizon is pathetic and they are too desperate.
How to shut droid up: allow user customization, open up developers to their full potential, and just butt out of our decsions. With one update the iPhone stomps the droid short of a better camera and removable battery.
Or you can just jailbreak and get all of those except for the better camera.
Apple knows what they need to do. They just have to read Verizon’s ads. Apple will, and Verizon better be working on their next Droid model now because these are the two phones that will be trying to up each other. Competition is good forthis reason. The consumer ends up winning.
Funny how they avoid the Verizon name completely. “Grass roots” and the most restrictive and mobile-crippling telco in existence don’t go too well together after all?
Others have tried the swappable battery and multi-tasking scams ad nauseam… and did not go anywhere with it (all Android phones so far offered both, Palm Pre offered both, look at the numbers – consumers do not care for either). Apple’s app approval process is certainly flawed, but except for some whining developers and a few people resorting to jailbreaks, nobody cares for that either, as the choice available on the App Store still beats anything offered on other platforms by miles. Analysts except Verizon to maybe sell as many Droids in 2009 as Apple sold 3GSs over the first weekend. Move along. Nothing to see here.
Although I agree whole-heartedly with the iPhone’s superiority, I found it quite aggregious to see a “droid/verizon” advertisement on this site and right next to this article. Are there not enough businesses out there that are iPhone oriented that this site doesn’t have to take advertising money from Verizon? I realize that the site is no longer Apple iPhone Apps anymore, but this site is obviously very pro iPhone and 90% of the apps reviewed are for the iPhone. Please find other advertising revenue streams………..
I actually like some of the ads for this campaign. My favorite is the misfit-toys one. The ads are however having a reverse effect than intended though, as they all really drive home that iPhone is >the< standard that everyone is trying to catch up with — in this case rather desperately.
Still love my iPhone and really doubt we'll be seeing anything standardize around the droid smartphone ever. Do they really think that there will be a droid-port in any new cars coming off the assembly lines? Nope, it's the iPod, iPhone ports that we'll be seeing more and more of.
Whilst I love my little iPhone – I do agree with Verizon’s take on the matter, though I don’t necessarily agree with the way they are executing their campaign.
Within a few days of purchasing my iPhone I posted on the Apple forums, only to have my post removed by moderators for apparently ‘excessively slandering’ the iPhone. All I was doing was arguing the whole Adobe Flash or lack thereof issue in a very polite and open-minded manner.