Chasing the iPhone

I'm not a cell phone expert. I do not have an iPhone (though I want one) and while I'm usually aware of what hot new phone has come out, I don't necessarily know all the details about it or what little features make it distinct. Being in advertising, however, I do pay attention to all the cell phone service and phone commercials.

Over the weekend, I was pointed to two different phone commercials for smart phones meant to rival the iPhone. This first spot (above) is brilliantly done. It's emotional and pleasing to watch and moves to the instrumental rhythm of Sinnerman. The only complaint I have is that it seems to be an ad for a specific phone, but instead it's actually an ad for the company that makes the phone, HTC. Who is HTC? Good question. A little googling revealed that they're a manufacturing company that has previously done contract work for Palm and Compaq, but chose to branch out and launch it's own phone last year—the Android. Remember that Google phone from T-Mobile that everyone was talking about last year as being a major competitor to the iPhone and then promptly forgot about it a couple months after its release? That was made by HTC. This new campaign is their attempt to make themselves a phone manufaturing household name, like Motorola or Nokia. The trouble is, as cool as this commercial is, I don't understand that's what it's advertising. Maybe it's just to be memorable and get HTC in the consumer's head, in which case, it might be doing a great job. What do you think? Did you remember the HTC call out at the end? Did you wonder who or what it was?

Similarly, the other commercial called to my attention this weekend was for Verizon's new Droid phone. Droid? That sounds a lot like Android. Hmm. Well apparently it's another Google phone (the Google phones, unlike my initial and incorrect assumtion, are not actually made by Google, they're just using Google software) this time made by Motorola. The spot for the Droid phone, is also very good, but takes a hard hitting, and cleverly done, line against the iPhone pointing out all the things the iPhone iDon't. Make no mistake, this phone is intended to be a serious iPhone competitor from Verizon and Motorola. Will this Google phone actually compete this time? I've read arguments both ways. One says, yes, this phone finally has the right processor to compete with the iPhone's speed while another says Droid won't be intuitive or smooth enough to ever really compete with the iPhone. Well, Droid comes out in November, so we will see. You can find out what Droid Does on the website.

UPDATE: Just a day after this post, I stumbled across a great blog post comparing all the features of the new Droid phone to the iPhone. Definitely worth checking out.