Give into the night....

i just saw a commercial where a dude with a feature phone got hosed trying to to a girl with a smart phone. The commercial was best buy piggy backing off the EVO and was really stupid but it is a milestone in my eyes.

These commercials are posed to influence people on a almost instinctual level. The message is "you need a smart phone to attract members of the opposite sex". This message has been applied to so many products over the years from cars, to clothes, to sunglasses, to beer, the list goes on. On the surface most people disregard this message and laugh at the commercial. However ad agencies aren't successful by luck, they study statistics relentlessly. Advertising is a purely empirical world so if you see a commercial advertising a reputable company it's likely they are paying a large ad company lots of money to disseminate this seemingly stupid and juvenile message. They aren't doing it because they personally believe the message or think the target audience will take the face value of the message, it's because the ad agency has the statistics to back up the approach. However this approach doesn't always work, it really depends on where the product or service is in market acceptance. You won't see this approach with the slap chop or snuggie because they are small niche gifts. Until today i didn't think I'd see it used for cell phones.

In this example the milestone is that smart phones have reached a point where they are approaching mainstream. We can thank Apple, HTC, and Google for this. I personally can not wait to see what second quarter cell phone sales figures look like. Not only for the always interesting war between android and apple, but also for more eye opening figures of how much smart phones are gaining on feature phones. Everyday i hear about people moving from features to smart phones. I also hear more about people switching from iphone to android. Just today i talked with a colleague of mine who has an iphone for 3 years at least. I asked him if he would be getting the new iphone. He said no, that even though the new iphone looks considerably better than his current model, he is much more likely to jump ship and get the HTC incredible. He mentioned AT&T's poor service and Apple's overbearing need for control as the two influences in his decision. I immediately encouraged his intentions citing the many pro's of the incredible.

Feature phones will be a severe minority in the world of mobile communications. It is merely a matter of time, and i can not wait. The larger the market the more services and companies will cater to it. The last player will obviously be the government but imagine a world where all you need to leave you house is your cell phone. Life will simplify. Clothes will change. Garments with multiple pockets will become unnecessary. However purses will still hold on but the ratio of useful contents to useless will decrease exponentially. A good question is will wallets or coin purses that match the main purse still be manufactured and sold? They will serve absolutely no purpose. I mean at that point neither does the purse but something has to match the shoes.