Now that everyone and their mother’s got a smartphone, you’ve got a pile of sweaty capitalists pounding on the door trying to find every last conceivable way to turn the trend into cold, hard cash. One of the most obvious — quality apps from a central clearinghouse — is proving fruitful through countless official platform app stores, but targeted mobile advertising has to be a close second. Google saw the writing on the wall and snapped up AdMob not long ago; one of AdMob’s competitors, Quattro Wireless, is now rumored to be locked up for a purchase by Apple for a cool $275 million as early as tomorrow. While mobile ads (or ads of any sort, really) aren’t event remotely in Cupertino’s repertoire, it’s easy to see how this could give the company an opportunity to capitalize on the iPhone’s vibrant free app ecosystem, centralize revenue for devs (while stealing a nice little cut for itself), and take back a cottage industry that’s flourished since the App Store’s debut. At this point, it’s unclear what this means for iPhone users — or would-be tablet users, for that matter — but seeing how this jibes with recent Apple IP, this tie-up might actually make a frightening amount of sense.
Looks like Motorola’s fully back in the game: not only does it have the hottest Android device you can (currently) buy in the Droid, word today is that the company’s dished out somewhere between $2.5 and $3 million for at least one Super Bowl commercial. It’s been a while since Motorola last spent so lavishly on an ad campaign, so we’re super curious to see what device the ad is for — the safe bet is obviously the Droid, but CES could bring both the AT&T-destined Backflip and Sholes Tablet, so it’s all up in the air. Our main hope? The return of HELLO MOTO.
There’s hardly a spokesasshole in the world of tech who doesn’t throw around some kind of tagline. And that’s fine because it’s his job, but there’s no reason for you to repeat those taglines. Especially any of these seven.
Droid Does
Verizon’s Droid commercials haven’t been around very long, but I already keep seeing various combination of “iDon’t” and “Droid does” being incorporated into everything from tweets to articles. (Hell, even we couldn’t resist it once or twice.)
I can sort of forgive occurrences of the tagline slipping into reviews or posts about the actual gadget, but several days ago I found myself overhearing a fellow practically reciting the first Droid commercial to mock his buddy’s iPhone preference. I seriously hope that I was in some sort of bizarro coffee shop or that maybe this guy was just an oddity. Please just skip this tagline, because I assure you: That guy sounded like a complete asshole.
There’s an App for That
C’mon. Be honest. How often have you slipped this gem of a tagline into a comment? And how often have you groaned or rolled your eyes because you saw someone else remark that there is in fact an app for that? It was barely funny the first few times, but at this point even your grandma is using it and that oughta tell you something.
And no, changing a word doesn’t make you sound like less of an asshole.
Think Different
Once upon a time, Apple’s “Think Different” commercial made me smile at its cleverness. Then I saw the commercial a second time and I cringed. It’s actually kinda cheesy and the tagline isn’t much better. No matter what the concept behind it is, it basically feels like it’s a nicely cut down version of the trite and overused “think outside of the box” and hearing it used feels just as irritating.
Can You Hear Me Now?
Unless you’re genuinely wondering if the person you’re talking to can hear you, there’s no way to not sound like an asshole when using the “Can you hear me now?” tagline. Not even in an ironic look-at-me-I’m-so-cool-that-I-can-say-this-to-mock-it way.
Besides, while I’m certain that he’s a nice fellow, do you really want to associate yourself with the slightly dorky-looking Verizon Guy?
It Keeps Going, and Going, and Going…
Last weekend I asked a friend how her date went. She remarked that he was like an Energizer bunny. And, as she thought I was confused by the expression, she continued to explain that he “kept going, and going, and going…” and it took me quite some willpower to not break down in tears on the spot. Someone so clever and lovely insisted on using a reference and a tagline so incredibly cliched that I’d initially thought I’d heard wrong. Please. Think of a better description for these things. (Especially since it’s probably inaccurate in that scenario since hardly gentlemen really manage to keep up with that darned bunny rabbit.)
Where Do You Want to Go Today?
Oh, as much as Microsoft’s good old “where do you want to go today?” annoys me, I actually crave to hear it sometimes. Such as in place of that grunt and nod I get from cab drivers. As with the “can you hear me now?” tagline, this one should only be used when you mean it literally and aren’t attempting to make an allusion to the commercial.
Intel Inside
I’ve seen “baby inside,” “beauty inside,” “goddess inside,” “whiskey inside,” and who-knows-what-else inside tshirts, bumper stickers, and undies. Unless I’m seriously mistaken, those are spin-offs to the ancient “Intel inside” and they’re not exactly funny anymore. I doubt that anyone can show me a single example of play on that tagline that won’t make me roll my eyes (but feel free to try). In the meantime: Let’s just not add to the ridiculousness.
Motorola’s European version of the Droid — the Milestone — is on the verge of release in the UK, so it’s not surprising to see ads starting to pop up. This is the first we’ve seen, and we’ll say that the approach is… interesting. In contrast to the over the top, explosive (literally — did you see that banana?!) Verizon Droid ads, the Milestone ad is all about information, delivered in a soothing, sophisticated tone. “Intelligence and versatility converge” here, and we have to say we much prefer this approach over the it’s a “frickin’ robot” one taken by Verizon. Decide for yourself — the video is after the break.
External graphics cards may well be a rarity these days, but we’re not sure if this simple fact justifies the launch of a grotesque and debatably heinous ad campaign. As you can so clearly see above, Gigabyte disagrees. In order to promote its Taiwanese M1305 CULV laptop cum external graphics card dock (housing an NVIDIA GeForce GT220 desktop VGA card), it released posters featuring a disoriented person poking his / her nose, each of which were presumably in the process of “doing some soul searching.” Curious as to what these ads actually say? “How good is an expansion dock with integrated graphics card? Plug in a Gigabyte laptop and you’ll find out!” Thanks, but no thanks Gigabyte — we’re currently preoccupied with flushing our memories of this visual disturbance you’ve just forced upon us.
Psst… two more posters after the break for extra raunchiness!
Shuttle isn’t exactly a company known for aggressive marketing campaigns, but it looks to be changing its tune a bit in the lead up to CES, and it’s not too hard to see who its target is. While the company’s main website is still as bright and cheery as ever, the newly launched We Are Not AlienbWare.com is an entirely different tale, featuring an ominous teaser video that mixes Shuttle promos (and metaphors) in with footage from District 9. Of course, it is a teaser video, so it’s light on any details, but Shuttle is apparently promising something fairly big for CES. Hit up the link below to check out the video for yourself, or if it’s giving you fits, just hop on past the break and mash play.
We hate to point out the obvious, but it really seems that the marketing gurus at AT&T have this all wrong. Look guys — no one’s debating that AT&T’s 3G isn’t the fastest where available. We even saw as much ourselves. But Verizon’s recent slew of ads have been calling out the size of your 3G network, which you absolutely can’t argue is incredibly small when placed next to red-tinted competition. That said, AT&T is still fighting a battle to which no one has challenged it by employing the admittedly quirky Luke Wilson to show off just how much faster his favorite network can download a JPEG of himself compared to VZW. We’ve got to say that the results are fairly hilarious, but frankly, we would’ve rather seen that huge ad buy go towards a few more 3G towers here in the US of A. Vid’s after the break, per usual.
There’s something peculiar about Verizon‘s latest addition to its promotional Droid onslaught. Sure, we get the expected Mad Libs-esque hyperboles like “it rips through the web like a circular saw through a ripe banana,” but other nods seem to indicate an acknowledgement that, well, it’s not the prettiest of flagship phone princesses. “Should [a phone be] be a tiara-wearing digitally clueless beauty pageant queen?” (Wonder who that’s a reference to.) Listen Verizon, trading “hairdo for can do” is great and all, but why can’t we simply have both brains and beauty? Still, it’s nice to know the fighting words haven’t all but left the industry. See the ad for yourself after the break.
Update: Whoa, so this is crazy. We just checked out the other suit that was dismissed, and it turns out that Verizon actually sued AT&T back in July, but not for any damages — instead, Big Red asked the court to rule that its various “Most Reliable 3G Network” taglines were actually true. That wackiness certainly explains why AT&T felt the need to push back, we suppose, and it makes Verizon’s current whining over Sprint’s “Most Dependable 3G Network” claims part of a larger, lamer pattern. We’ve included a shot of the case after the break, check it out.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
Now that everyone and their mother’s got a smartphone, you’ve got a pile of sweaty capitalists pounding on the door trying to find every last conceivable way to turn the trend into cold, hard cash. One of the most obvious — quality apps from a central clearinghouse — is proving fruitful through countless official platform app stores, but targeted mobile advertising has to be a close second. Google saw the writing on the wall and snapped up AdMob not long ago; one of AdMob’s competitors, Quattro Wireless, is now rumored to be locked up for a purchase by Apple for a cool $275 million as early as tomorrow. While mobile ads (or ads of any sort, really) aren’t event remotely in Cupertino’s repertoire, it’s easy to see how this could give the company an opportunity to capitalize on the iPhone’s vibrant free app ecosystem, centralize revenue for devs (while stealing a nice little cut for itself), and take back a cottage industry that’s flourished since the App Store’s debut. At this point, it’s unclear what this means for iPhone users — or would-be tablet users, for that matter — but seeing how this jibes with recent Apple IP, this tie-up might actually make a frightening amount of sense.
