AT&T iPhone ads confuse, dismay us
Case in point: they’re new advertisements featuring “average Joes” talking about the iPhone like it was the RAZR 3. Whereas Apple’s marketing team tries to sell the device as a technology, AT&T is trying to aim for “people,” that slippery demographic of human beings who couldn’t give three farts about a phone made by what amounts to being a fourth-tier player in the mobile phone market. Meet Doug, Elliot, and Stephano, three regular guys who love to listen to voicemail, search for people in the Internet, and hate man purses, respectively. The ads include real things like “backdrops,” “extras,” and “dialogue” and include little of the stuff hipsters love about Apple commercials, namely catchy singles by unknown bands and close ups of fingers touching screens.
AT&T has every right to try to sell this phone. However, they should probably hurry up because they’ve got a good year and a half before the iPhone is a 2G memory and the 3G iPhone, available unlocked in every store in the land, turns Stephano into even more of a backwards Neanderthal than he already is.