Verizon posts first iPhone 4 ad without ever showing phone
Verizon has posted its first iPhone 4 advertisement to YouTube, and readers are reporting seeing the new ad air in primetime TV broadcasts.
The new spot depicts a series of clocks ticking, building anticipation for what is revealed to be the simple text of "iPhone 4," accompanied by an Apple logo, followed by the Verizon logo in red, "it begins," "2.10.11," and a final slide featuring the carrier's "rule the air" logo.
Nowhere in the brief spot is the iPhone 4 actually ever pictured, nor are any of its features described. The only Apple product actually shown is a brief clip of a Magic Mouse and Apple keyboard portrayed next to an anxious hand with tapping fingers.
Verizon doesn't have to depict the phone or its features, because over the past three years the iPhone has become what is perhaps the best known new brand in consumer electronics on earth. All the carrier needs to do is suggest that everyone wants to get it on Verizon.
Conspicuously, however, a narrator indicates that Verizon's own customers are waiting for the iPhone, rather than hinting that the message is directed toward AT&T subscribers hoping to switch.
"To our millions of customers who never stopped believing this day would come, thank you," the voice says, making it sound as if Verizon expects more defection among its own smartphone users than switchers from AT&T.
Apple's original ads for iPhone primarily focused on its unique features, apart from the teaser aired in conjunction with the Oscars in 2007, which depicted a variety of movie clips of famous characters answering the phone. That spot at least depicted the then-new iPhone however.
Focused on functionality
Subsequent ads demonstrated how the new iPhone worked, in a series of spots that focused entirely on a closeup of a phone being manipulated by touch to place calls, look up information and browse the web.
With the release of iPhone 2.0 and the App Store, Apple next focused on apps in a series of ads that made the phrase "there's an app for that" famous.
Apple's ads for iPhone 4 focused on its new FaceTime feature, depicting families and friends animatedly engaging in video calls to the Louis Armstrong song "When You're Smiling."
The new spot depicts a series of clocks ticking, building anticipation for what is revealed to be the simple text of "iPhone 4," accompanied by an Apple logo, followed by the Verizon logo in red, "it begins," "2.10.11," and a final slide featuring the carrier's "rule the air" logo.
Nowhere in the brief spot is the iPhone 4 actually ever pictured, nor are any of its features described. The only Apple product actually shown is a brief clip of a Magic Mouse and Apple keyboard portrayed next to an anxious hand with tapping fingers.
Verizon doesn't have to depict the phone or its features, because over the past three years the iPhone has become what is perhaps the best known new brand in consumer electronics on earth. All the carrier needs to do is suggest that everyone wants to get it on Verizon.
Conspicuously, however, a narrator indicates that Verizon's own customers are waiting for the iPhone, rather than hinting that the message is directed toward AT&T subscribers hoping to switch.
"To our millions of customers who never stopped believing this day would come, thank you," the voice says, making it sound as if Verizon expects more defection among its own smartphone users than switchers from AT&T.
Apple's original ads for iPhone primarily focused on its unique features, apart from the teaser aired in conjunction with the Oscars in 2007, which depicted a variety of movie clips of famous characters answering the phone. That spot at least depicted the then-new iPhone however.
Focused on functionality
Subsequent ads demonstrated how the new iPhone worked, in a series of spots that focused entirely on a closeup of a phone being manipulated by touch to place calls, look up information and browse the web.
With the release of iPhone 2.0 and the App Store, Apple next focused on apps in a series of ads that made the phrase "there's an app for that" famous.
Apple's ads for iPhone 4 focused on its new FaceTime feature, depicting families and friends animatedly engaging in video calls to the Louis Armstrong song "When You're Smiling."
Comments
It may have been sitting on the shelf for months.
Yes, I saw the aluminum keyboard and Magic Mouse...
It would not surprise me if this ad was produced by Apple's advertising agency and the ad space paid by Apple.
It may have been sitting on the shelf for months.
You got that almost right:
It would not surprise me if this ad was produced by Apple's advertising agency and the ad space paid by Verizon.
I actually think this is a pretty good commercial. People have seen countless Apple commercials showing off the iPhone's capabilities so there is no need to demonstrate those. I wouldn't be surprised to see a new round of carrier-agnostic iPhone commercials from Apple in the coming weeks. This commercial is really about all those Verizon customers who have long awaited the iPhone.
Agreed. It plainly said "thank you" (for not leaving Verizon for AT&T in the last four years). An alternate interpretation is "thank you for putting up with our lack of iPhone for the last four years."
Agreed. It plainly said "thank you" (for not leaving Verizon for AT&T in the last four years). An alternate interpretation is "thank you for putting up with our lack of iPhone for the last four years."
If you look at the rollout, Verizon customers are able to pre-order a week ahead of everyone else. Verizon knows its got a hit on its hand just from its existing customer base.
funny going back memory lane...and even funnier thinking now just how ridiculously crippled the iphone was on 1.0...a phone, an ipod and a web browser...lol 2007 feels like a lifetime ago now.
Heeey? there were 11 other apps, too.
Now they're acting like it's Jesus come down from Galilee ...
p.s. I do understand competitive markets and advertising strategies, but I think it's worth recognizing the rather salient change in Verizon's public attitude towards the iPhone.
I wonder how much of an advertising blitz in general Verizon is going to put behind the iPhone. AT&T doesn't seem very interested in pushing specific phones, but Verizon has been running Android ads like a company possessed. There's going to be a fair amount of cognitive dissonance if "Android is here to shoot the gay off the iPhone with its laser gun" Verizon suddenly starts pumping out "actually, come to think of it, the iPhone totally rulest" ads and putting them everywhere.
Money tends to do that....
Money tends to do that....
True, but it doesn't magically erase everyone's memory. I can't really remember a time when a heavy advertising blitz designed to convince consumers that product A was inferior to product B was instantly replaced with an advertising blitz from the same vendor saying the opposite.
Although I guess the explicitly iPhone bashing ads were earlier on, so maybe it's been long enough where Verizon can just make wild claims for each platform without referencing the other.
I wonder if this means the iPhone is presently to find itself pitched as surrogate dick, since that seems to be pretty much what Verizon phones advertising is about?
Well, all I've seen so far on TV is ipad commercials.
Heeey? there were 11 other apps, too.
The iphone 4 finally silenced a lot of user complaints/requests: some sort of flash, video recording (was that 3GS), high res screen, etc.
With it came in a lot of sales.
funny going back memory lane...and even funnier thinking now just how ridiculously crippled the iphone was on 1.0...a phone, an ipod and a web browser...lol 2007 feels like a lifetime ago now.
Steve had me at