Maybe it’s because of the imminent local number portability deadline, maybe it’s because of the holiday shopping season launch, maybe it’s because wireless data is starting to gain some traction, but advertising by wireless carriers has moved from the mundane to the entertaining.
Gone is the confusion between Met Life and mLife, and the abstractness of Cingular’s Jack.
Today wireless operators, which are expected to fork over $1.5 billion in advertising for the rest of the year, are sending clear, concise messages to consumers and enterprises-selling the benefits of wireless telephony. And with no disrespect to Jack, their individual personalities are coming through.
Let the differentiation begin.
Virgin Mobile is launching an ad campaign featuring naked people themed, “The gift with nothing to hide.” I’m not crazy about the campaign, which is great, because I’m not Virgin Mobile’s target audience.
Meanwhile, Verizon Wireless, which forced people to pay attention to network quality with its “Can you hear me now?” campaign, has wisely moved beyond that initial point to inject some humor into the subject. A recent TV ad features an MMS message sent to a homeowner that his beloved squirrel statue has been kidnapped. The ransom price is the sender’s (the next-door neighbor) garden shears. It’s a simple, funny way to show America the possibilities of MMS and picture phones. Sprint PCS hopes to do the same thing with its MMS advertising, featuring Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd.
Cingular’s ads touting its rollover minutes also help the carrier stand out in a crowded market. The woman who complains that she doesn’t want to go over her allotted number of minutes, but doesn’t want to not use them, will be a figure the value-conscious segment of the audience can identify with.
My favorite ad is from T-Mobile USA, in which an employee asks his supervisor for all Fridays off for the rest of the year (even though he does not have the time coming) because T-Mobile says the weekend now starts sooner. It’s an entertaining way to get a new message across and certainly will appeal to consumers.
I’m more leery of IBM’s mobile Centrino ad. IBM is touting its computer can be used at a 17,500-foot base camp on Mount Everest during a blizzard. Now even if the winds and cold did not affect the network, and even if the actors had nothing better to do during a blizzard than look at pics of kids at the beach, I think you would at least keep your mittens on while booting up. However, I did a little research and it turns out the ad is based on reality. IBM had to tweak the chips a bit, but the computer worked.
