One of our favorite MBA-terms: leveraging. Honestly, I just could not think of a better word. What I mean is 'cheapening' or 'band-wagoning' or 'exploiting'... but none fit the title without some explanation.
I saw this commercial on TV (yes, traditional media) last night:
http://www.youtube.com/user/windowsphone?blend=2&ob=1
Starts off great - and I'm sure most everyone (US & globally) can relate to how silly our society has become with staring at their phones and texting non-stop. But then, why would a phone by Microsoft (MS) solve this? Is the message, "Hey, you are ruining your life staring at you phone, so may as well consider doing that with our phone too"? There is nothing in this ad that speaks to the features or advantages of the MS Phone. Worse, there was no feeling of excitement for me that made me want to seek out and test the phone at my local AT&T store; or even go online and read about the phone. So I am writing this blog post with complete ignorance on the MS Phone. You know what, I'm okay with that.
That is such an odd ad. It makes me want to dump all phones, not get theirs. I wonder if there is some strategy behind this, of if this is just going to be another Kin like product, which was around for about a week...
ReplyDeleteYa the Windows Phone is pushing it's radically different user interface, but their ad does nothing to show why it is so great.
ReplyDeleteSO TRUE! I thought the same thing when I saw this ad. I must give it 'clever' points though.
ReplyDeleteInteresting! I thought that this was a smart play, considering their significantly disadvantaged position. Not only did they successfully differentiate themselves in perception from their direct competition, who already have substantial holds on segments of the market, but it looks (to me:) like MSFT, in an in uncharacteristic fit of insight, identified and spoke to the concern of the people it wants to target! adoption of smartphones is still not near universal (despite what it looks like scanning our classrooms :) and is expected to grow substantially every year for several years. The next waves of adopters aren't the early adopting twenty-something crowd, who don't see being "chained" to their device as an issue. They are soccer moms, middle aged men finally graduating from a blackberry, college freshmen ditching their flip phones and (hugely!) the emerging middle class in other countries. The message of "get in, get out, get on with it" or whatever it was that they said will speak to later-adopting demographics who still, as naive as it may be, believe that the important stuff takes places IRL, so to speak ;)
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