On Friday, in our newspaper there was a glossy eight-page flyer from Bell Canada, one of Canada’s big three telephone companies; it’s a very mainstream outfit that nobody would ever accuse of being on the leading or any other edge. I found its contents instructive, and suspect that similar things are showing up in weekend papers around the world.
The front page mentioned no products by name, but had a nice glossy picture of a Blackberry, a Samsung Galaxy S, and a Galaxy Tab. On the back page was iPhone 4: “This changes everything. Again”, no price mentioned.
On the intervening pages we find ads for (I’ll include the with-3-year-plan and no-plan prices in Canadian dollars, which this month are about the same as the US variety):
HTC Desire Z, “Super-fast Android” ($129/$499).
LG Optimus Quantum, “The only Windows Phone 7 with a full keyboard” ($99/$449).
Samsung Galaxy Tab, “The tablet that supports Flash” ($599). No with-plan price given.
Blackberry Torch, “The hottest Blackberry” ($179/$599).
Samsung Galaxy S Vibrant, “The best phone for video calling” ($149/$499).
Under “Made for messaging” are grouped the Samsung Galaxy Touch ($49/$179), LG Rumor Plus ($0/$159), and Samsung Impact ($0/$149).
Under “More great Blackberry smartphones” are grouped the Blackberry Bold ($124/$499), and Blackberry Curve ($24/$349).
All of the phones are featureless shiny black objects with rounded corners, except for some have keyboards. There were also ads for various plans, internet sticks, and a cable PVR.
So, let’s break it down: One iOS, one WP7, three Androids, three dumbphones, and four Blackberrys. Alternatively, one HTC, one Apple, two LGs, four Samsungs, and four Blackberrys.
Contributions
Comment feed for ongoing:
From: JulesLt (Nov 14 2010, at 00:29)
Adobe are absolute geniuses - I still haven't met anyone in the real world (i.e. a non-techy) who cares about Flash. Or actually knows what it is.
I've never heard anyone complain about missing it on their HTC, Nokia, iPhone, etc, and it's certainly not something I heard anyone mention, even in tech circles, until Apple took their line against it.
That actually seems to have been great for Adobe - like a record being banned by the radio, all of a sudden Flash became a lot more attractive.
So to get things to the point where Samsung are using it as a marketing point, and every mobile phone review mentions it's lack or presence, is absolute genius.
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From: Rob... (Nov 14 2010, at 00:46)
People really buy 3 year contracts?! That seems much too long for any of the current generation of smart phones.
Regards,
Rob...
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From: J Banana (Nov 14 2010, at 10:36)
So the conclusions that I'm drawing is that smart phones are still pretty damn expensive, and that marketeers have noticed that a time for expensicew presents is coming up.
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From: Fabian Ritzmann (Nov 14 2010, at 13:57)
You would find a couple of Nokia phones on similar ads outside North America.
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