How Android Phone Makers Are Missing the Marketing Boat

An anonymous reader writes "Why are Android device commercials showing giant robots and lightning bolts and not advertising features? Here is an interesting blog post of things Android device manufacturers could be doing to get ahead of Apple, but aren't." On a similar front, as a mostly happy Android user, I must admit envy for the jillions of accessories marketed for the iPhone, especially ones that take advantage of that Apple-only accessory port; maybe the Android Open Accessory project will help.

Comments

Re:Marketing and user experience

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, because Android users don't have contracts or subsidized phone. Get real. The vast majority of Android users are paying the same price for voice and data as their Apple and Blackberry loving counterparts. The vast majority of Android users are also using a subsidized phones and, yes, many of the leading Android phones are going for prices that are in line with their iPhone cousins.
 
So you're dead wrong. While some Android device might be able to be got for a lower price point and while you may be able to get them with a cheaper data plan, the vast majority of Android users simply aren't doing this.

Re:Marketing and user experience

[rolfwind]

It's because Android devices are marketed for nerds, by nerds. And nerds don't understand marketing or user experience.

Hit the nail on the head. There was a huge contingent here jeering and predicting in dire tones the huge failure of the iPad between its unveiling and release. Some nerds gets filled with nerdrage when tech isn't marketed to them, I guess. They also go about trying to sell products in all the wrong fashion and don't understand what drives people to buy them, and end up calling said (and popular) products crap in some hipster-nerd type of elitism which doesn't exactly bring them closer to understanding the market.

Anyway, from what I read, Apple's users more willingly pay for apps, so developers develop more willingly for iPhone. Since the price difference on iPhone and Android products are miniscule when subsidized, it's going to become a "It's the Apps stupid!" cycle ala Apple vs PC wars, except Apple is going to be on the flip side despite having a smaller base. (Also, less fragmentation of devices is nice for the developer as well, but $$$ is king of course.)

Though I wish Web OS became more popular, iOS and its clone Android has UI quirks that annoy me.

Another problem

[Daetrin]

That ad for what you can do with the iPhone was actually an ad for what you can do with iOS. That works fine for Apple because if they convince you to use iOS the only product you're going to buy is an iPhone.

On the other hand if Motorola puts out an ad highlighting all the things you can do with Android then even if they convince you to get an Android phone there's no guarantee you'll by _their_ Android phone.

This isn't an insurmountable problem, they could split the time between what's good about Android and what's good about their phone, or talk about features of Android without mentioning they're features that _all_ Android phones have. But it probably seems safer to the executives to only focus on what's cool about _their_ phone.

And of course the other thing is that i believe historically commercials that have gone with the whiz-bang appeal have done better than commercials that tried to be informative. As a nerd this always bothered me because i'm more interested in facts than presentation. (Not that i don't enjoy a well done presentation, but i try not to let my purchasing habits be influenced by it.) But i guess the majority of the male 18-35 demographic that commercials always try to aim at doesn't think the same way.

So another question to ask is, what demographic is the Apple commercial appealing to? And is it actually more successful overall than the Android commercials? The iPhone is certainly selling well above any individual Android model, but it's selling well below the total Android ecosystem. If one company switched to similar informative commercials would they actually see an increase in sales? Or is the iPhone's dominance as a single model due to some other factor? Again, as i nerd i actually like the tack the Apple commercial is taking (even if i get offended at all the times they imply, or even state outright, that you can't do the same thing on Android when you most certainly can) but historically appealing to people like me hasn't usually led to widespread market success.

So given all the differences between the Apple/iOS/Apple/iPhone model and the Google/Android/Dozens of companies/hundreds of phones model it's hard to say when comparing marketing strategies and measures of success is valid and when it's comparing, well, apples to oranges.