By The Motorola Droid campaign was epic, from the day they started teasing it as DroidDoes through its current state of Red Eye commercials that highlight the device’s features in a manly, edgy way. While the device itself is incredible, a TON of credit has to go to the team that made this marketing campaign POP. The fact that its Verizon certainly helped too.
Same device. Different place. Result? B-O-R-I-N-G!
Watching this really doesn’t make me want to buy the phone. It’s full of vague propositions that nearly every smartphone can claim. I realize that the DROID commercials can’t be used or redone for the Milestone, but this is a pretty poor effort if you ask me. In fact, its so poor that if you could actually TRACK what motivated people to purchase, I’m guessing the American Verizon Droid commercials will influence more Motorola Milestone sales than the Milestone commercials themselves.
Looking at this and then looking back at the Verizon Droid campaign only makes Verizon look more like a group of geniuses. Who woulda thunk…. Verizon and Google as BFFs.
Arguably a bit boring, but this is a different culture, you have to consider that. Stealth fighters and stuff don’t work over here, we want to know what it is and what it does. Got mine in the post atm… Can’t wait!
this commercial has been out for at least 1 month in germany. old, old news. what’s with the lag, phandroid? hehe, np. love this site! but yeah, old news…
As much as you say that it falls short, there are a few things you neglect to appreciate.
Explosions and vast action scenes with little to no information (often involving army vehicles, fighter jets IIRC) only really appeal to the majority in America. Other countries don’t share the blind violent patriotism and thus this advert acts as an information giving experience.
As opposed to *BOOOOOOM* “BUY THE FUCKING PHONE NOW!”
Yeah that kinda sucked bootie.. its actually pretty awful it put me to sleep!
I argee with ade it is a different culture so they’ll have to take a different approach to promoting the phone. I think where they lost is the name. They should have picked a name they were going to use worldwide. I hate to use this as an example but if you were to go somewhere in Europe and ask, “what’s an Iphone?” Chances are they’ve heard of it. I think they still could have used the Droid name but just take a different approach. But oh the other hand europeans have commercials like these
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98l5L2y9odQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVUXomsutdc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8HemfRVK8E&feature=related
As @ade and @G&D pointed out, different country different set of marketing rules. My wife is from one of those “foreign” countries, and she still doesn’t understand American advertisements…
I happen to like the simplicity of it. I always thought that the Droid commercials were a little to hoaky. I like a commercial that shows nothing but the functionality and form of the device. The droid commercials were purely for the people that buy the phone just because its “cool”.
I’m born and raised here in the US and even I don’t get US advertising all the time.
Rob, your absolutely right! Without Verizons Droid-Campain I wouldn’t have been half as much into my Milestone before buying it.
The sad part is, like you in the US, we in Germany have only one Provider selling the iPhone.
Instead of building this phone, like it deserves it, as the iPhone killer and get huge sales it never got any support by O2 and Vodafone, who are selling this.
O2 supports the Pre as if it was their little child and Vodafone instead invests in it’s 360 Campain, using phones build by Samsung which have another Linux-based GUI called LiMo and which just sucks…
Of course the Milestone just rocked all tests by mobilephone-sites and having it myself since 3 weeks I can say it rocks!
What those two publishers just did was nothing else but a very big failure by their own leadership.
So call yourself lucky in the US, as the buying rates of the Droid guarantee you full support for Updates and everything. we on the other hand are lucky if those updates even reach us, as there is still no real official statement about that.
“*BOOOOOOM* “BUY THE FUCKING PHONE NOW!””
That’s funny!
Uk adverts look rather boring compared to US ones :D
It doesn’t even say how fast the phone can cut through a ripe banana! haha just kidding … ;-)
@Rob
I find the commercial ok, not gangbusters like the iDon’t commercials attacking the iPhone in the US. But I thought British reserve means that it is not cricket to attack your competitors in commercials in the UK? Stiff upper lip? English country gentlemen??
The situation in the US is vastly different. Verizon was desperate for a big seller going into Christmas and Google was in the right place at the right time. Furthermore, the iPhone is exclusive to ATT but was ripe for criticism. ATT Wireless is a very poor 3G network compared to Verizon Wireless and most first movers on mobile phones were ripe for an alternative to both the iPhone (closed/walled gardens) v Android (open everything). The ideal for a techie would be to have an iPhone 3G on Verizon but that is unlikely before 2011. Also, Americans love a comeback story and Motorola is certainly that! So the commercials in the US stress Verizon and Droid capabilities, with Motorola barely mentioned!
By contrast, Motorola obviously ran into difficulties in the UK carrier market because the monopolists (ie, networks) wanted to extract too high a subsidy from Motorola unless they were sure they had a winner. Hence, Motorola goes thru the back door with a one month exclusive with Expansys. Now the monopolists are kicking themselves. Why? Because Verizon will soon announce sales of 1 million Motorola Droids (and some Eris’) since 8 November launch in US and they are watching Expansys get this first mover advantage (a once in a lifetime opportunity for Expansys!). Mobile handset sales are very slow in the UK this year and had Vodafone or Orange really pushed hard and jumped all over Motorola for the Milestone, they would have had a bumper Xmas season compared to their competitors. Now they are just getting second licks on the iPhone 3G which has been around forever…Vodafone won’t even get one until January and Tesco will be their competitor! Stupid corporate decisions by the UK monopolists gave Expansys as golden opportunity.
That is my take.
Comments?
I like the US Droid commercials because I think it’s funny how they are attacking AT&T, but I didn’t “dislike” this commercial. They simply aren’t attacking their competitors. Also, it would seem they are targeting a wider market than Verizon (whose Droid campaign has mainly been targeting males between 17-30, right?).
Guys get technology more, it’s just a simple fact of geekism. The UK commercial seems to have left the hard spec-sheet details on the cutting room floor for a wider adopted, non-geek commercial that more people can appreciate and understand.
inspiration for the Droid commercials:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lzbr6fPDmkE
(warning: highly intense and may not be work safe)
@G8D:
What do stealth fighters and explosions have to do with “blind violent patriotism”? I’d say you’re reading too much into things, but your blinding bias already said that for me, thanks.
Personally, I didn’t see anything wrong with the ad. And for the record, there is a US version of the same ad, on Motorola’s site (only with slight dialog changes and a different speaker). This was designed as an overall Motorola ad for the Droid/Milestone, not region-centric. Maybe Moto spent money on making the units and not on their blind quota of explosives and military aircraft. Who knows?
The DROID ad campaign BOOM BOOM BOOM! offended me.
A hundred million bucks spent and MOT has yet to sell a million droids. Advertising cost: $100 a phone– THAT’s a SUCK-cess?
bear superfan is an idiot. You do realize it is almost 1 million sold in the US alone in one month and still selling fast. Also add that verizon makes money off of plans and not their phones.
The average verizon plan comes out to about $2000 (possibly more) multiplied by 1 million sold and counting.. i dont know man but i think that is success
Abuse of “epic” explains it all.
The Droid advertising campaign was juvenile, middling at best.
I appreciate the original Apple parody teaser; but the stealth bomber garbage and other commercials that don’t *show the device*?
Rubbish.
I’m not twelve years old. I don’t want snarky throw away digs at the competition (in most cases, I find the Verizon vs. AT&T commercials rather funny; because it’s true), show me the device. Show me what it does.
Droid is a great phone despite screwball marketing. Hopefully they iron that out and the Droid invasion will march on more quickly.
that’s the ticket. but europe need to step it us and add bliz the hell out of the public. just make sure someone can’t take a piss without seeing an add. then anrdoid will be truly be on the map.
it does not actually matter what commercial goes on TV. Smartphone sales in EU do not lay only on TV addictive nerds. Anyway, all available units were sold out in few hours from its launch in UK.
@Aquaman
The Droid campaign started out with virtually no information about the phone.. It made people ask, what the heck is that all about ? .. It put the consumer in the position to seek out information about the product they where selling, and ask why this is such a big deal compared to other products.. How many other commercials make you get on the web and look something up to find out more about it ? .. It was an ingenious start, and they have been building on it with more information in their commercials now that it is already out there.. T-Mobiles myTouch campaign, as a comparison, was awful.. basically passing phone from celebrity to celebrity and telling you nothing is a similar strategy in that you have to seek out more information, but it didn’t have the mystery of the Droid campaign, that would make as many people actively search for more information.
@rigamrts:
Uh, no – the least thing we need is for Google to start spamming every sense like Apple. I think they’re doing fine as is.
here in the UK we dont need flashing images and stealth bombers to grab our attention. what DOES grab our attention is informative adverts.
“juvenile, middling at best.”
“Rubbish”
“snarky”
Oh, you Brits and your fancy language. I love ya.
stop criticizing US commericials cuz they are amazing! being born and raised here, Americans sells with sex and with ACTION. Seeing those Verizon commericials interests you instead of a phone popping up with words. When you see the red eye and robots you IMMEDIATLY think of the DROID commercials, therefore good advertising, because it STAMPS the image into your head never letting you forget. Boring words with a phone is completly forgettable, but not the red eye with jets and bombs. Thank you, i rest my case :)
Damn this commercial was weak. The device is great. But the Milestone ads make it more like MILDstone.
“I’m the British lady who is just here to get a check.”
Even the SPANISH commericals were better than this!
You want to sell smartphones to an audience, you gotta show the full features of the Droid/Milestone/Sholes/A855:
* Voice Command.
* Turn by Turn navigation (certainly, they should have this in Canada and the UK, right?)
* Barcode scanning
* Multitasking without quickly wearing down the battery
* Visual Search (demo Google Goggles!)
These are things you can’t do with the iPhone. You want to take down the iPhone you got to get mad! You gotta show them what you are made of!
Now go sell some phones like you mean it!
I would like to make a simple comment here. Hope the writer of article reads it. There is MAJOR difference between US and European marketing. While the hard, rough, bashing droid adds from the us are cool and awesome and brutal, the fact is that a marketing campaign like that would horribly fail in Europe. These are facts.
not my piont at all non informative adds just piss me off. actually phandoid kinda pisses me off sometimes too.
take this article.
this is what phandoid did to write this article. they write an article saying how androids the hot ticket in europe. then post this article from some rag they spotted. the only thing is the article’s all biased cause the guy’s got a hardon for the iphone and wishes android would go away or stuck in a bubble and not willing to do some reasearch.
Like others have said, I think it’s a cultural thing, I hated the American Droid campaign because it was all so obvious, like a trashy action film without substance or those giant trucks with all that plastic XTREME bodywork that, underneath, are cack vehicles. It screams overhyped, like listening to a salesman at pcworld (i.e, BestBuy) talk about Monster cable…
Lets not forget that Apple ads have always been in that relaxed, informational style (even if they’re smug to the point of parody themselves!) and look how terribly they worked…
I gotta disagree, I think that is a great ad. Slick, packed with information and it shows a lot more of the phone’s functionality than the US droid commercials.