Otaku Gadgets

The Motorola droid is finally here, but is it everything that you ever wanted? May be yes and possibly no. While the phone has generally received great reviews with very little held against it, consumers are not showing much interest in the Droid. Verizon did not expect the fanaticism that Apple products inspire but they surely were expecting something more.

The day of the Droid came and went by without any notable incident. There were no reports of crazy long lines or of people getting all excited about it. There was a palpable lack of interest in the device.

So why are people so very cold towards the red-eyed Droid? It might have something to do with the wrong ad campaign launched by Verizon.

The Droid Does campaign focused almost entirely on the iPhone’s faults and did very little to directly promote the Droid. The other side of the campaign, with the red eye and the machine-Armageddon theme, did not do much to inform the consumers either. The whole campaign would’ve been a great way to start off an ad campaign but it certainly wasn’t any good on its own.

You cannot have these teaser-like campaigns all over the place without a follow up that directly talks about the device. Without the follow up, your campaign becomes exceedingly vague and confusing to your prospective customers. If anything, now Verizon’s customers know that something in the market is trying to take down the iPhone but not doing a very good job. That is surely not the message Verizon wanted to push.

Directly taking on Apple in a segment that it created and currently rules is never a good idea. It is not ambitious. It is stupid and suicidal. The sad part is that the Droid is actually a pretty great device on its own and it should’ve been advertised without all the Apple-hate. That would’ve actually helped to take the consumer’s attention away from the iPhone. With a comparison campaign you may be giving negative importance to the competition but you are highlighting them nonetheless.

So if the Droid is not selling, it is mainly the Verizon marketing departments fault because Motorola has finally come up with a great device and after a long time too.