Apple’s doing the Oscars up right tonight — not only was Steve Jobs making friends on the red carpet, but the company ran the first iPad ad just now during the broadcast. It’s pretty much what you’d expect out of an Apple ad, but, you know, moremagical. Get ready for a blitz of these as we lead up to April 3. Video after the break.
We know good and well what kind of extravagant displays are available to gawk at in New York City, but now it looks like the locals will have yet another one to check out when they’re taking a breather from the rat race. CBS Outdoor has unveiled plans to deliver two solid hours (from 11:30AM to 1:30PM throughout February) of 3D advertising on an expansive, high-definition video screen installed within Grand Central Station. Unlike the glasses-free solution that we spotted at Intel’s CES booth this year, this one will still require onlookers to rock those heinous and soul-crushing glasses in order to “see” the “effect,” and with around 70,000 commuters passing by each day, we’d guess that the spectacle manufacturer who nabbed this contract is feeling pretty good right about now.
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.
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.
Looks like Verizon’s addicted to the sweet taste of success: following its victory over AT&T regarding the Map For That ads, Big Red’s complaining to the The National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus about Sprint’s “America’s most dependable 3G network” tagline. Verizon says that a recent Nielsen survey shows its network drops fewer calls than Sprint’s, and for now the bureaucrats agree — the board’s asked Sprint to stop airing the ads. For its part, Sprint says one study doesn’t tell the whole tale, and it’s going to keep showing the ads while it appeals to the National Advertising Review Board. In other news, Verizon’s lawyers were seen heading to the local BMW dealership late last night, following a run-in with Sprint’s attorneys at the Mercedes-Benz showroom.
Looks like AT&T’s not getting its holiday wish after all — a federal judge just ruled against Ma Bell’s request to have Verizon’s Map For That ads pulled off the air. That doesn’t mean that this whole thing is over, though: the judge called the ads “sneaky” and said that it was possible people might misunderstand them because “most people who are watching TV are semi-catatonic.” Whether or not that’s enough to support a legal conclusion that the ads are misleading is a fight for another day — specifically December 16th, when AT&T will have a second chance to argue its case. Still, this is a big win for Verizon — everyone ready to be inundated with these ads for the next month?
My iPhone 3GS, in downtown Chicago, as I wrote this post.
Verizon certainly seems to be getting under AT&T’s skin with its ads focused on comparing 3G coverage — not only is Ma Bell suing over ’em, it’s now issuing PR to clarify what it sees as the inaccuracies of the entire campaign. If you’ll recall, AT&T thinks Verizon’s 1:1 comparison of 3G coverage maps makes it look like AT&T doesn’t have any coverage at all across most of the country — which means that our nation’s largest wireless carrier is now in the sad position of pimping its gigantic EDGE network in response. Let’s all gloss over the absolutely huge difference in 3G versus EDGE together, shall we?
With both 3G and EDGE coverage, customers can access the Internet, send e-mail, surf the Web, stream music, download videos, send photos, text, talk and more. The only difference – with some data applications, 3G is faster than EDGE.
Right, right — the only difference. That must be why Apple named it the iPhone EDGE Slightly Faster.
Now, AT&T has a valid point when it says that its 3G map covers 75 percent of the nation’s population, and that Verizon’s conflation of total 3G coverage with actual network quality is slightly misleading. But you know what? We watch our iPhones drop from 3G to EDGE and even to GPRS all day long in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, and that has nothing to do with the damn map, and everything to do with AT&T’s actual network quality. Let’s put it this way: Verizon’s ad campaign would be totally ineffective if it didn’t ring so true, and the best way for AT&T to counter these ads is to build a rock-solid network, not filing lawsuits and issuing press releases bragging about freaking EDGE. We all clear on this? Good.
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