Second Verizon DROID commercial stealth attacks America
By Nilay Patel 
posted November 3rd 2009 8:53PM
posted November 3rd 2009 8:53PM
posted November 3rd 2009 8:53PM
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>> "Yeah, the iDon't is effective for sure... "
Yeah, effective, sure... but where were the ads slamming the iPhone in the beginning... when it couldn't do the simplest things like MMS or copy-n-paste? Oh right... the iPhone was competing against crappy Treos, Blackberries and the RAZR. But, it did have a great web browser and music player. Even with its shortcomings... didn't the original iPhone still sell millions in the first month? Apple "iSold" sell a lot of phones... and continues to this day.
If "iDon't" is the greatest ad campaign ever... "iPhone" is still one of the most popular phones. The first Android phone was released 16 months after the first iPhone.
The saddest story is it took 3 generations of the iPhone until Motorola finally made a desirable phone... and for Verizon to wake up and start getting good phones.
At least they retrofitted the iDon't ads with the DROID notification sound
iLOL iWTF
@Scrip:
Your logic is slightly off. The iPhone was a wake-up call and shock to the industry. Apple fans everywhere dropped their phones no matter what features the iPhone was missing because, well, it was made by Apple. Things such as MMS and copy/paste also got overlooked by users. Most users were coming from non-smart phones, copy and paste wasn't something on their mind in the least bit, and every phone could do MMS at that time. It was assumed, and disappointingly found out after one got an iPhone, that it couldn't do MMS.
Companies probably didn't have plans on creating phones near the caliber they do today. Just because the iPhone was released doesn't mean Motorola or any other company could just pull one out of their ass and instantly release it. Some companies released phones with features similar to the iPhone, yet they lacked the floss n' gloss. These phones didn't do well competing against the iPhone due to that fact.
Yes, the iPhone was released three years ago, but what you are not mentioning in the least bit is the development cycle for the iPhone itself. How long was it in development before it was released? This we will never know, due to Apple's psychotic secrecy, but you can bet it was quite a good amount of time.
Now we are getting phones that equal or surpass the glossyness of the iPhone's UI. Now we are getting true competition that is in many cases passing the iPhones capabilities. iDon't is very effective. There are many MANY people with iPhones who hate the limitations it carries. iDon't caters to these people.
I feel there are a lot of people who got iPhones because, well honestly, it has been considered "the" smart phone for the past couple years. Many of these people will not be getting iPhones again once their contract is up. Some won't because they don't like the service, some don't like the restrictions, some just hate the phone. Once the glory of owning an iPhone wears off, it's extreme weeknesses show through.
In short, yes the iPhone has done well and will continue to do well. But many of the people who are unsure of the phone or who have the phone and hate it (and yes, there are lots of people who have it and hate it) will appreciate the iDon't commercial.
I would know, I am one of them.
I think, for that 3 generations, if Apple actually tried to improve their iPhone, instead of adding one feature on a same design every year, nobody would be so eager for DROID to come out now. and Apple could have put Motorola out of mobile business.
Personally, I think Verizon, Motorola, and Google missed an opportunity with their DROID marketing. They licensed the name DROID from Lucasarts(or was it Lucasfilm?) so why couldn't they collaborate further with Lucasarts and use actual Star Wars characters in the ads? I know they would need Lucas to agree to that- and maybe they tried and he said no- but I want to know if they at least asked. They could have cross-marketed the DROID with whatever new Star Wars product Lucas is promoting. How about offering a preloaded Star Wars game demo on the phone? It just seems like a no-brainer to me.
I don't really understand it either, but i'm sure licensing the word DROID costs a couple orders of magnitude less than actual appearances by C3PO and company. Personally, I'd just as soon never see another Star Wars promotion of anything, but that'll never happen. Lucas has shit all over the franchise about a dozen times already and shows no intention of stopping.
I'm old!
79a: Steve Martin / Blondie
What The Hell Is That?
Tourist #1.....Steve Martin
Tourist #2.....Bill Murray
[ Tourist #1 wanders onto set, looks straight into camera inquisitively with a dumb look on his face ]
Tourist #1: What the hell is that?! [ squints ] What the hell is that? [ chuckling at himself ] What's that danged thing doing here! How did that get here? What the hell is that?! [ squints ] What the hell is that?! How'd that dang deal get here?! [ turns off-camera ] Hey! Come on over here and look at this deal!
[ Tourist #2 wanders onto the set to take a bewildered look ]
Tourist #2: What the hell is that?
Tourist #1: I don't know what the hell that is!
Tourist #2: What in the hell is that?!
Tourist #1: Hey, you kids! Get away from there!
Tourist #2: I would not mess with that thing..
Tourist #1: Don't put your lips on it!
Tourist #2: [ ever curious ] What the hell is this?
Tourist #1: Well.. get a photo of me with it, anyway!
[ Tourist #1 hands camera to Tourist #2, then walks away from camera view to have his picture taken ]
Tourist #2: Be careful with that thing. [ snaps Tourist #1's picture, as spark of ingenuity develops on his face ] Oh, I know what that is!
Tourist #1: [ returns next to Tourist #2 ] Well, what the hell is it?!
Tourist #2: [ looks closer ] What is that thing..?
Tourist #1: I don't even care what it is. [ pause ] What the hell is that?!
Tourist #2: I don't know what the hell that thing is.
Tourist #1: Oh, I know what it is!
Tourist #2: [ seeing it ] Oh, yeah.. oh yeah.. [ chuckles ]
[ Tourist #1 & #2 walk away from the stage. A beat, before their heads peer back into frame, more inquisitive than ever. ]
Tourist #1: What the hell was that?!
[ fade ]
remember remember the 6th of november
I doubt the iPhony lemmings will get it, but who cares?
This commercial is as bad as the movie of the same name. I'm all for viral marketing, but this one fails on so many levels.
"What in the world is that?"
Gold. Quote of the year.
Damn, now I wanna see the movie, that doesn't exist lol. Nice commercial if nothing else.
seems kinda like an alien movie parody, but the droids are delivered by fighter jets = iDon't get it. way to flex the advertising budget muscle, though, i guess.
They should have used Predator drones.
What a waste of phones going into the water like that! Talk about inaccuracy too...
@Blackstar
If you think that it's $3,000 a year for an iPhone then you lose all credibility. It costs me $600 a year for the 3GS with unlimited 3G data and texting and $200 to buy. Total cost for 2 years + phone is $1400. I'm sure the DROID isn't any cheaper with unlimited data 3G data and texting.
iDon't care about Droid
Talk nerdy to me, mr. ad man... which agency caters to Verizon again?
Wow. Another prime time ad???
This droid is doing more advertising than iphone3gs which ran zero ads.
Seems like they trying to set a new smartphone zEro to million record.
CAn they do it?will people besides bloggers lust after this phone. ?
This much is true if motorola fails to sell more than million on nov 6 this proves only thing.
Keyboard background apps removable memory card ate a thing of the past.
Agree???
Oh man it just gets me SO excited for friday!
hahahahahahahaha am lovin this ;-)
iDont icare iabout ianything ifrom ibig ibrother iApple, ithat's iall iknow...
When I see the people discovering the crashed ships, it feels very much like the original Superman movie when the Clarks first discover him and the wrecked starship.
@Jordan: Ofcourse you hate your iPhone now, cause you got bored of it and because Apple didnt keep on innovating. But if it wasnt for the iPhone, these great phones that are released today (HD2, X10, DROID) werent probably gonna be built for another 2 or 3 years. The smartphones would still be small display and buttons (Blackberry kind) or resistive touch screens commanded by stylus.
And it's true that it lacked MMS support and copy paste, but it had a big multitouch capacitive screen with a great browser, decent media player and cool animations & UI (for those times) - so for many it was worth losing features like MMS (which truth be told i only used for 3 or 4 times in my life). And ofcourse, when the AppStore came out, with all its fart apps & crap people bitch about, was worlds better than hunting for apps over the web and installing them through SSH.
I'm also bored of my iPhone, but i dont really hate it, in fact i'm thankfull somebody in tech industry had the balls to come up with a game changer.
OMG cell phones are falling from the sky hahahaha
I like it.. Its a cool advert.
They probably should have actually shown the Droid some time before the commercial was actually off to let people that haven't been hyped by the iDon't commercials know what they hell Verizon is talking about.
And the commercial pushes a little on the creepy side...I loved it!
This black kid ... isn't that Walt from Lost?
However ... I can't wait to get my hands on a DROID!!! :)
I wish mine was delivered that way.
GABBO! GABBO! GABBO!
The pod opening sounds exactly like the sound effect from starcraft
They're just trying to ride the nerdy is cool trend, and I'm detecting a subtle Halo reference by using drop date and the content of the ad - which really wasn't that good....I have Verizon and this is all really turning me off, plus the $350 ETF hike that's coming up - WTF I don't care how spotty AT&T service is in NYC with an iPhone I'm bailing
Customer satisfaction with the iPhone is highest of all smartphones. Apple is delivering on that point at least. Competition is good. The only companies that fear competition are those with no innovation in their blood. Good to see Motorola woken out of its stupor at last. It was close to being a basket case.
The ad is all about viral awareness. Smacks of "next gen" technology. Must say it's kinda creepy having aircraft drop bombs on the hinterland though and the targets don't really seem to be early, ahem, adopters, y'all.
"Aggressiveness" is on the air again. As for the commercial, you can see droid is getting hyped on more sci-fi driven ads - Actually the iDont has a bit of a transformer-like persona at the ending.. Anyway, the fans are loving it :D
iDont vs "iDont care by apple-fans: http://bit.ly/idont-vs-idont-care-and-the-winner-is-you
and they just keep on coming... :) Too bad, Verizon is on a downing-hill, now that AT&T didn't laugh at their mocking commercial.
WOW Verizon really made a commercial that made sense DROID an Android Phone as something man made and brought to the average User as something they do not understand but its so cool that they need to find out what it is.
@SirMasterboy Do yourself a favor: don't accuse others of lying and then tell 'em yourself. For an iPhone, the cost of unlimited data ($30/mo), unlimited texting ($20/mo), and the cheapest voice plan ($40/mo, 450 min) is at least $90 a month, or $1080 a year before tax. Hence, with the phone at $200 and the activation fee at $36 (again, not including any tax, where applicable), that becomes just over $2400 for two years.
"What in the world is that?"
It's a horrible looking phone, sir.
Does no-one remember the Palm Pre hype?
Sure we'd all like to see real competition for Steve's phone but we're again getting sucked into the hype
The real success is the effectiveness of the advertisements.
My HTC Touch was pretty innovative for the time--which came out BEFORE the iPhone.
TouchFlo is pretty cool, and I don't believe the iPhone is responsible for all these new phones--especially not the HD2,etc. Perhaps phones like BB Storm, but not WM phones.
LMAO I loved that commercial!! "What in the world is that?!?" xD xD