Sprint EVO "First" Advertising...

[drexappeal]

I think Sprint is making an awful mistake by primarily going with the "First" marketing campaign for the EVO. The newest one is, the "First" wireless provider with Android 2.2.

http://spe.atdmt.com/ds/YUSPTSPRTSPR/HERO/081610_UEC_EVOAndroid_960x320.jpg
This link is from Sprint's website.

Doesn't really make a big difference to me because I LOVE my EVO, but just speaking from a business standpoint, I think that Sprint's entire marketing team is awful!...ROFLMAO. They need to get more "gimicky" and draw the consumers in. They should take a book from Verizon's marketing team. The term "Droid" is more commonly known than "Android." It's gimicky and I'm sure that Verizon pays a lot of money for the licensing rights (from LucasFilm), but it still draws people in.

Sprint's marketing strategy seems very old fashion. Every time I see a "First" commercial about the EVO, I keep thinking in my head, "yeah, that's great. First also means that the phone is likely to have the most problems and issues, much like the first light bulb, car, phone, etc..."

 

[novox77]

Is that popup window with the "updating to 2.2" really what the OTA update looked like?

The only thing I really think of when I see those "first" commercials is, "too bad they're out of stock."

But yeah, I'd like to see Sprint unify the Android phones somewhat, like what verizon did with the Droid moniker. And if Sprint and HTC are smart, they'll come up with a successor to the Evo and use the word Evo in the next phone.

 

[Slick1020]

I have a degree in communications and I could have ran a better ad campaign using some crayons and fingerpaint....LOL. Actually, they should have just used this guy for the EVO. They need to put a face to the phone. When I think of BEAST and EVOLUTION, I think of this guy. This would have been money in the bank for YEARS! Kids would have been running around saying "flunked it to iphone fanboys."

YouTube - FLASHLESS IPHONE 4G FAILS AS EVO KILLER

 

[Thefoodman52]

I can see it now....

"Sprint, now with the first in 4G wireless technology. First is fast. First is stylish. First is almost impossible to keep in stock. First isn't what you'll be on our waiting lists.

The HTC Evo 4G with Sprint."

 

[drexappeal]

Is that popup window with the "updating to 2.2" really what the OTA update looked like?

The only thing I really think of when I see those "first" commercials is, "too bad they're out of stock."

But yeah, I'd like to see Sprint unify the Android phones somewhat, like what verizon did with the Droid moniker. And if Sprint and HTC are smart, they'll come up with a successor to the Evo and use the word Evo in the next phone.

LOL...the 2.2 update looked plain jane compared to how they show it in the pic.

Totally agree on the EVO name. I think that's a name that can be built on. It embodies technology and its constant growth and EVOlution.

 

[EarlyMon]

Advertising like this reminds me of the old railroad tycoons and the explanation that I was taught as to how they got left behind:

• They thought they were in the railroad business
• They'd forgotten they were in the move things and people around business

They downplay HTC (others sell that), they downplay the EVO itself (others sell similar), they're not even playing Android right (others sell that too) - look at message:

• FIRST WIRELESS CARRIER WITH ANDROID 2.2

Hey Sprint - if you're listening - your lame narcissism sells nothing. Gee - thanks for giving us 2.2 - and please sir, may I have another lump of coal?

You are not in the wireless carrier business - you're in the connecting people with people business.

At this moment in time, Android 2.2 on an EVO on the Sprint network is doing that way better and way less expensively than anything else on the market.

In fact - it's a perfect alignment of technologies and that's rare. Period.

And no - the EPIC 4G will not substitute. Nothing else is going to substitute.

You are blowing the biggest chance anyone's ever been handed on a silver platter for advertising opportunities.

While the other guys sell robotics - you can sell connecting people to people and connecting people to themselves.

That, or you can sit in (or is on?) your caboose while trucks and aeroplanes leave you behind.

Don't sell being a benevolent carrier, don't sell hardware - don't sell the 4G feature - concentrate on the benefit.

It's that simple.

 

[TF1984]

Well just an outside the box perspective for all of you marketing Gurus here, whether or not Sprint is marketing in a way you believe is effective, efficient and accurate is not that important, especially given the fact that

THE EVO IS STILL SOLD OUT EVERYWHERE. I believe their marketing on this device is doing just fine by them, and you can believe that whatever VP fronting the Evo project is receiving some hefty bonuses...

Marketing only sucks if a product is not selling. der...

 

[Slick1020]

Well just an outside the box perspective for all of you marketing Gurus here, whether or not Sprint is marketing in a way you believe is effective, efficient and accurate is not that important, especially given the fact that

THE EVO IS STILL SOLD OUT EVERYWHERE. I believe their marketing on this device is doing just fine by them, and you can believe that whatever VP fronting the Evo project is receiving some hefty bonuses...

Marketing only sucks if a product is not selling. der...

To be honest a coworker had a Droid and another guy chimed in about Sprint coming out with the EVO. I looked up the phone on a website at work and I said in April I was going to get that phone! The EVO and I were meant to be together from the first moment I saw the webpage. Didn't read any specs or anything. I took leave and I stood in line on launch day for my EVO 4G Baby!

 

[EarlyMon]

The EVO is sold out in spite of Sprint's advertising - not because of it.

You tell me that Sprint's advertising sold _you_ on getting an EVO and I'm a monkey's uncle.

 

[vblick]

Sprints tv advertising is ridiculously bad. People know what Droid is, how couldn't they? Evo? What's that. I feel like sprint spent all their advertising money on 1 or 2 bad commercials and a lot of internet advertising.

 

[Thefoodman52]

Well, most of the people who OWN any Android phone on Sprint are regularly on the internet. Not directly stating that most of us are nerds but....uhh....I'm not saying I'm not one.

 

[EarlyMon]

Emailed this thread to their CEO.

Smile - you're on candid camera!

 

[R1_Rydah]

sadly word of mouth has done more for the EVO than sprints advertising has... but like Thefoodman52 eluded to even if they did make a killer commercial they couldn't fulfill the demand... I personally know 4 people that want Evo's but can't get them, without getting on a waiting list, or stumbling upon one on a received shipment day...

 

[EarlyMon]

Well, most of the people who OWN any Android phone on Sprint are regularly on the internet. Not directly stating that most of us are nerds but....uhh....I'm not saying I'm not one.

OK - you're getting it, now drop the labeling (was it Nietzsche, or Dick Van Patton who said, "To label me it to negate me?").

You've just nailed it - in various circles, it's called the target market or the target demographic.

Someone buying a smartphone is already very internet-aware.

Android and nerd cloud that simple fact.

Someone buying a smartphone is buying a phone.

First choose the carrier - Sprint.

Next evaluate their biggest baddest phone and then see what you might buy down from there in price.

For the real smartphone market, you can't - you stick at the EVO because in this day and age only the biggest, baddest phone on Sprint's network will do.

And most of us will never see 4G and don't care and did not buy some mystical future capability.

We all said the same thing, now didn't we: "Well, I might never get 4G and I might never use it - but the EVO will kill anything on 3G right now - so what about 4G!"

Tell me it did _not_ go down that way for you, too.

Because I'll bet it did.

 

[EarlyMon]

sadly word of mouth has done more for the EVO than sprints advertising has... but like Thefoodman52 eluded to even if they did make a killer commercial they couldn't fulfill the demand... I personally know 4 people that want Evo's but can't get them, without getting on a waiting list, or stumbling upon one on a received shipment day...

I simply have more faith in Sprint's buying power than you do right now.

Have you looked at the difference in size between HTC and Sprint?

Oh, yes, everyone's all primed for the Epic alternative - the thing with a GPS problem out of the gate, the thing gizmodo says won't run apps from the Market.

I have no clue - Sprint might think that they can move people over to that Edsel and not lose this wave. If so, somebody's going to become due for a serious reading of everything Detroit did not learn from Dr. Demming until it was too late.

 

[Slick1020]

sadly word of mouth has done more for the EVO than sprints advertising has... but like Thefoodman52 eluded to even if they did make a killer commercial they couldn't fulfill the demand... I personally know 4 people that want Evo's but can't get them, without getting on a waiting list, or stumbling upon one on a received shipment day...

Will your friends take an EPIC 4G or is it like my analogy in another thread? The EVO is like your mom buying you a new Transformer that you asked for. The EPIC 4G is like your mom coming home with a Gobot instead of a Transformer.

 

[R1_Rydah]

Will your friends take and EPIC 4G or is it like my analogy in another thread? The EVO is like your mom buying you a new Transformer that you asked for. The EPIC 4G is like your mom coming home with a Gobot instead of a Transformer.

I fwded the Epic email from sprint to all of them, and I described it as a Evo with a keyboard... and none of them bit, they are all fixated on the Evo... So its exactly like the scenario you described!

 

[novox77]

The EPIC 4G is like your mom coming home with a Gobot instead of a Transformer.

I lol'd. for real. Gobots, lol

 

[Slick1020]

I lol'd. for real. Gobots, lol

You lucky I didn't break out Voltron and compare it to Power Rangers. When I was stationed in Korea I picked up a Voltron from the toy store. All the lions form into a Voltron. Took me back to my childhood.

 

[Brewmeister]

I finally decided to buy my Evo about a week and a half ago (I like to wait until the early adopters have worked out most of the bugs), and still haven't managed to find one for sale, so when I see these adds, I just laugh.

I'm on a couple of waiting lists, and the shipments seem to have just stopped, so I think that something is up. Maybe HTC is getting tired of losing money by air-mailing the phones to the stores and have started slow shipping all of their stock to the US so that it all comes in on one big shipping container....lets hope that it's not one of the containers that occationally falls from the ship.

 

[Slick1020]

I finally decided to buy my Evo about a week and a half ago (I like to wait until the early adopters have worked out most of the bugs), and still haven't managed to find one for sale, so when I see these adds, I just laugh.

I'm on a couple of waiting lists, and the shipments seem to have just stopped, so I think that something is up. Maybe HTC is getting tired of losing money by air-mailing the phones to the stores and have started slow shipping all of their stock to the US so that it all comes in on one big shipping container....lets hope that it's not one of the containers that occationally falls from the ship.

So you don't want to wait on an EPIC Brew?

 

[B Allen]

First to charge a $10 fee for 4G...
First to charge a $10 fee for people who can't even get 4G!

I think I'd rather see Sprint continue the First campaign over that gawd awful 'Droid' campaign. Those commercials are terrible.

 

[novox77]

For the longest time, I thought 4G was some sort of marketing gimmick, like Sprint's special brand of 3G. Sprint was advertising 4G before it was useable. Remember the commercials that went "69 million people are sexting their gfs this very minute?" I remembered the commercial, but what purpose did it serve?

Likewise for the Droid commercials. I guess Verizon decided that girls won't like Androids. So the commercials are so masculinized with no clear message. Showing buildings and cars transforming a la transformers into radars, having a guy reach into a rock and his arm turns bionic... how does that convince me that I need a Droid?

Meanwhile Apple is showing on your TV exactly how facetime works. Even the original iphone commercials were showing us phone operation including the finger using the touchscreen.

How about a campaign less focused on penis size, and one that shows us what the phones actually do? what a concept!

 

[Slick1020]

I think I'd rather see Sprint continue the First campaign over that gawd awful 'Droid' campaign. Those commercials are terrible.

You must be really old to say that....

I have the DROID sound play whenever I receive a notification. People love it. They start saying "Droid" even though I have an EVO. As you can see Verizon's ad campaign is effective.

 

[B Allen]

You must be really old to say that....

I have the DROID sound play whenever I receive a notification. People love it. They start saying "Droid" even though I have an EVO. As you can see Verizon's ad campaign is effective.

You must be really young and have immature friends to say that.

If saying 'Droid' is the new in thing, I'm happy to be considered old.