Video: What Verizon's First iPhone 4 Ad Is Really Saying
Verizon (VZ)'s first ad for the iPhone 4 could have consisted of nothing but a piece of paper with the handwritten message "iPhone 4, Feb. 10, 2011" and it still would have done the job. Such is the level of built-in consumer awareness for the launch. Is there any Verizon customer who remains unaware that Apple (AAPL)'s smartphone is on the way?
The commercial all but admits this: It's a teaser that doesn't show the product or say anything about it. Instead, it portrays a bunch of people clockwatching as they wait for i-Day to arrive. A voiceover says only:
To our millions of customers who never stopped believing this day would come, thank you.Like a lot of advertising, the spot says more about the inner psyche of management than it does about what consumers want from Verizon. Useful information for consumers that could have been in the ad includes price, availability, ease of switching from other phones or competing carriers, and maybe something on how the Verizon iPhone will be different from the AT&T (T) version.
Instead, we get chutzpah: Verizon's managers are no doubt still high-fiving each other for snagging the iPhone -- and why not, it's the best thing that ever happened to the company. But their joy is not the same thing as consumers' joy. The message in the ad seems to assume that consumers suspected all along that Verizon was chiseling away at Apple to get the iPhone. This is nonsense, of course, but that doesn't matter. The lines will be out the door no matter how self-congratulating Verizon's marketing is.
Related: Image by Flickr user smemon, CC.