Shaping Users With Mobile and TV Advertising
HTC and You Commercial
HTC’s new campaign to target smartphones as a lifestyle device is another shot in the arm for handset OEMs to further define the mobile subscriber. The tide has certainly shifted and it seems that mobile operator marketing just falls further and further behind. It’s commercials like these that are shaping how Users and Mobile become increasing integrated.
Verizon Wireless – Map For That Commercial
It’s odd that while Verizon is advertising streaming video and other data intensive services, at the core, they are still emphasizing their coverage. I think this has still been the argument for the past 5+ years. The fortunate part about all of this is that in Verizon Wireless’ case, it’s true. People still care about coverage because of dropped calls, resending messages, and jerky streaming music and video.
AT&T – Rollover Minutes Commercial
AT&T is pushing Rollover Minutes in a big way. Still. While Apple’s iPhone commercials do some marketing push for AT&T, it’s only at the very, very end. IMHO, Rollover Minutes should stop being advertised. Try and promote other services! Get people to choose you instead of the competition.
Sprint NOW Network
Lastly, Sprint and their NOW Network campaign seems to understand how to market better. While the statistics are nice and quirky, they need to talk more to me and drive an emotional response. HTC and Blackberry do much better at this. Funny that Sprint is also pushing very hard on the Palm Pre, more so that Palm pushing on their own with respect to TV commercials.
Conclusion
The Handset OEMs are winning with better consumer marketing. The mobile operators need to reboot their outreach to consumers and perhaps co-opts a la Intel and perhaps push devices more and use the “powered by” analogy. For the US market for example, could be good for brands like Nokia and SonyEricsson who are struggling against the like of Samsung and LG.
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