iDon’t Want a Droid… O Wait, Yes I Do!

Media Meditation Number 1

It's here: the Verizon iPhone equivalent.

Verizon just introduced its new smart phone (and iPhone competitor): Droid. The company is laying down the loot pushing the product on the American public. According to The Silicon Valley Insider, the Droid advertisement series is an "...integrated campaign, the largest in Verizon history, (and) will receive an estimated $100 million in support, most of it spent before the end of the year." I guess that's just a meager amount when you compare it to the "$280 billion (that) was spent on U.S. advertising (about one-third of the money spent on ads worldwide)-- enough money to finance the budgets of several small countries" (375).

Verizon has done basically everything it can to set Droid apart from the current dominator of the smart phone market, the iPhone. The initial commercial Verizon launched featured a series of “iDont’s.” Although the iPhone is never directly referenced, it's pretty clear that it's the target, especially with the format of the font (iPod, iPhone, ect), a clear symbol of an Apple product. Droid presents itself as a simple solution for those that don't like the iPhone, or just don't have AT&T.

Apple was quick to respond to the iDont campaign with another commercial: iDon't Care.

The campaign just started airing commercials in October, and already I feel as if I have been anticipating this new “solve-all-the-iPhone’s-problem’s” smart phone for years. Maybe that’s because Verizon chose to launch an intrusive multi-media campaign with not only a television commercial element, but also advertising on YouTube and Facebook. This advertising technique is called saturation advertising, defined in Media and Culture "a variety of media are inundated with ads aimed at target audiences" (356).

iPhone commercials, and Apple advertisements in general, tend to be funny, catchy, and kind of upbeat. They appeal to the limbic brain with trendy music, and bright, crisp images. This is not the case with Droid. Verizon chose a very futuristic and mechanical look for its ads, setting itself apart from the iPhone.

The campaigns aesthetics definitely set it apart from the iPhone, but I am not sure that this choice is going to be in Verizon’s favor. The cold, harsh nature of the ads seems mostly directed towards techy-male consumers. This could hurt Droid’s chances of becoming the first iPhone killer. Media and Culture highlights the fact that "...ad agencies believed women, who constituted 70 to 80 percent of newspaper and magazine readers, controlled more household purchasing decisions. (This is still a fundamental principle of advertising today)" (350). Apple Matters had a short, funny post about the differences in the two phones' advertisement series. A commenter on the Apple Matters blog pointed out how the iDon't ad may seem "anti-Apple" but, in actuality, both companies ads are using the straw man technique, so they are not completely opposite.

I went on the Droid site to see exactly what this baby can do. Well, talk about convergence. It's not only a cell phone, but a full on media hub. Droid functions as a GPS, an appointment book, a camera (5 mega pixels that can take pictures IN THE DARK), a search engine, a vehicle for social interaction, a mP3 player, and if you can believe it, much, much more. This phone has options I would have never even thought of. You can find your friends (or lovers, children, co-workers... anyone in your phone book) with Google latitude, which allows you to see where they are and vice versa. Isn't that called stalking? Personally, this whole know-where-everyone-is-at-all-times is not working for me. This is an extreme example of cultural shift.

One really cool aspect of this new do-everything device I discovered on their website was Android.

Seeing that I am not exactly a "tech-savvy" person, I got a little lost in the developer lingo used in the

short video on the Android site, but when I saw the video of the TWO phones playing Pong together, I was sold.

I want one of these.

The article Verizon released explains the Android platform, and the partnership

with Google (the largest media conglomerate in existence) in a more "plain folks" type of language. According to chairman and chief executive ofGoogle, “The Android platform allows Verizon Wireless customers to experience faster and easier access to the web from any location...Through this partnership, we hope to deliver greater innovation in the mobile space to consumers across the U.S.” Having a faster internet connection will no doubt boost the already huge amount of people that are communicating through social networking sites, like Facebook or Twitter. But, it could as well widen the digital divide. Those that can afford new, expensive smart phones have the ability to access the internet faster and more reliably than those that can't.

Oh yeah, how could I forget this nifty little feature, Droid does Times Square. Use the voice search option and your search may appear on the NASDAQ ticker in Times Square. Totally necessary. Right?

No, almost none of this is in any way necessary! Although I love the convenience of having everything in one place, we have to ask: is convergence making us stupid? I read a great article in another class of mine, Is Google Making Us Stupid, and I have to say, yes. I was talking to my brother in law the other day and he was saying how he couldn’t read a map. 32 year old man, can’t read a map. What is wrong with that picture? There are so many things that we have technology do for us now and days that we could do for ourselves.

So is the Droid another step in the wrong direction? Or am I just living in the technological past and need to get with the program? Whatever it is, the Droid is a welcome competitor to the iPhone in the Smart Phone market. Apple has dominated a good portion of the media market, with their line of laptops, which are becoming increasingly more popular and of course, the iPod, which has yet to be challenged (successfully) by another brand of portable mP3 player, and now the iPhone.

Is the Droid on my Christmas list? I'm not so sure I'm ready for all that accessibility.