• [from steve_portigal] Laptops Look like Race Cars — And Not in a Good Way [NYTimes.com] – [Pogue on the ridiculous sticker-on-laptops package] As A.M.D. points out, it’s like buying a new, luxury car­ and discovering that it comes with non-removable bumper stickers that promote the motor oil, the floor mat maker, the windshield-fluid company and the pine tree air freshener you have no intention of ever using….A.M.D.’s research shows that consumers hate the stickers (duh). But they’re not going away, for one simple reason: There’s big money involved. I(Apple famously refuses to put Intel stickers on its computers, even though there’s Intel inside. In doing so, it leaves millions of dollars a year on the table.)…In 2011, A.M.D. will switch to new stickers that peel off easily, leaving no residue; after that, it’s considering eliminating the sticker program altogether. In the meanwhile, it’s going to make affixing its stickers optional. If a computer company chooses not to use the A.M.D. stickers, A.M.D. will still pay it the same marketing dollars to use in other ways.
• [from steve_portigal] DROID DOES – [Of course this advertising copy is at least partly tongue-in-cheek but I really have to wonder why - even as a joke - this is the sort of thing that we supposedly want out of our devices. The radio ad goes even further, giving voice to the implicit message here by promising to turn you into a machine. Verizon's raison d'etre is to sell phones, I know, but ulp, people, ulp. As we grapple with where we're at with this digi-firehose, Droid is putting a mecha-stake in the ground for us] Turns your eyes into captivated apertures of ecstasy. Its web-busting speed turns your arms into blistering, churning pistons. It’s power, intelligence and intuition. It’s not a better phone. It’s a better you….Its power, ability, brains and skill turn you into a web-rocketing, message-crafting super-you…with web-browsing speed that shoots you from zero to sixty in nanoseconds. It has an intuitive QWERTY keyboard that turns your thumbs into twin, text turbines and steaming diesel email engines.
• [from steve_portigal] Robert Krulwich on Wondering [Frank Chimero] – Noticing is tough, yet rewarding work, and it begs to be documented. We’ve more tools than ever to do so…Maybe if the noticing started to arrange into larger patterns or there got to be a lot of documentation, I could maybe even print up a book of all the things I had noticed. And wouldn’t that be a nice thing to have on the bookshelf? My Year of Noticing and Wondering — 2010. As a person constantly in a position to produce words or designs or ideas, or whatever it may be, it feels good to give myself permission to kick back and inquisitively absorb things as they come. Part of noticing isn’t seeking, it’s highly reliant on serendipity and unexpected relevancy.

Tags: advertising, android, brand, copy, design, droid, laptop, messaging, noticing, os, phone, pogue, positioning, quickies, smartphone, stickers, technology

2 Responses to “ChittahChattah Quickies”

The Droid Does ad is particulrly striking in contrast to your recent comments about Lunapads. The Droid commercial gives me the utter willies (as does the Lunapad to a certain extent) yet I sit squarely in (I think) the target market for both. Droid has completely misjudged who they are selling to, settling for a tiny band. Not that their advertising needs to be beige to suit everyone, but if they had used personas or a similar tool they’d know they are slamming the door on at least 5 other user populations.

Comment by Linda Matthews 09.09.10 @ 12:49 pm





Thanks, Linda. I admit that at first the Droid ads (with those spidery robot arms holding the phone) were kinda cool, suggesting that I could “own” my tech-geek-cred with their product. But they’ve gone overboard with it, maybe lost sight of their original positioning in favor of award-winning (?) creative? Anyway, I like how you’ve put it here in terms of slamming the door. Yes!

Comment by Steve Portigal 09.09.10 @ 2:20 pm