Mobile Behavior: an Omnicom Group Company

BlackBerry's latest television ads place its instant messaging service (BBM) front and center. They take a look at its role in a variety of users' everyday lives and ride perfectly on the company's recent How Do You BBM? contest.

For those who haven't "BBMed", it is one of BlackBerry's most praised and valued features, a successful take on mobile instant messaging. With it, dedicated chat rooms are set up for group messaging and sharing using text, photos, and emoticons. Users swap contacts using a pin number or personalized QR code. It's not unusual to see people sharing these via sites like BBMNation or on BlackBerry's Facebook page.

The company's recent advertising features BlackBerry users in everyday situations, everywhere from the barber shop to the road. It demonstrates how BBM can be used for capturing and sharing of photos. One man talks about using it for group coordination, helping friends spontaneously meet in real life. Others use it for presenting and selling art.

One interesting feature that is pointed out is the ability to determine whether or not a message was received. This is something that isn't possible with regular SMS. Urban Dictionary presents a possible resulting scenario well.

Alissa: Hey I bbmed you yesterday and you never answered!
Me: Oh, I never got your bbms.
Alissa: Yes you did! Dont lie, I saw on our conversation that you received them.
Me: crap, I wish i didnt open that damn bbm

How do BBM users blow off dates? Blaming poor reception or dropped text messages aren't legitimate answers. See the new BlackBerry television ads here.

Truth in Advertising is a running series of advertisements that portray consumers using mobile technology in their everyday life. They take a look at how brands are demonstrating our want and need for mobility. Click here to view previous entries.

Best Buy is attempting to shame customers into upgrading to a new smart phone. With the help of Crispin Porter + Bogusky, their latest effort includes a "Phone Shame Eliminator."

ReadWriteWeb says:

The campaign tells people too poor or otherwise disinclined to have smart phones that they are sexually unattractive, going nowhere at work and not very bright. Some of the ads are also funny, even if they are classist, tasteless, obnoxious and cruel.

People consider their mobile phone an extension of themselves, naturally tied to their identity. Best Buy's tactics may be questionable but they are hitting a nerve. According to an April 2010 ExactTarget study, 58% of all US internet users ages 15 and older still use a feature phone. With all the hype around apps, we're sure a good number of them are eyeing their friend's iPhone or Droid with envy. A recent Piper Jaffray survey points out that 31% of teens plan on purchasing the iPhone alone. Could this help influence others to make the switch?

Watch the ad here:

Truth in Advertising is a running series of advertisements that portray consumers using mobile technology in their everyday life. They take a look at how brands are demonstrating our want and need for mobility. Click here to view previous entries.

In this spot for Else Mobile we see a world with all the elements of a possible future. Of course as all science fiction is written as commentary on the present, we see a few current truths in Else's marketing message.

• Mobile augmented reality is used to guide us through a sea of data presented about our physical world. Everything is connected, as is seen through RFID toys, interactive billboards, and QR enabled buildings. ReadWriteWeb reports on Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's optimism about the "Internet of Things."
• The ad states that technology was supposed to make life easier, but now it is more complicated. Yet another observation about the present, one that people are working to solve through filters. With an overload of data, human-centered design is key.
• "Technology was supposed to liberate us, but instead has enslaved us." A final remark that reveals this tension between the real-time web and a "slow life" that future generations might never realize. Keeping up with check-ins, tweets, and Facebook status updates can feel like imprisonment. Suicide Machine and Self Control are here to help.

While Else Mobile presents this possible future, it really shows us a slightly more developed present. No one truly knows exactly what's next, but hopefully through connecting these dots we can make sense of what we're building towards.

Truth in Advertising is a running series of advertisements that portray consumers using mobile technology in their everyday life. They take a look at how brands are demonstrating our want and need for mobility. Click here to view previous entries.

[via fubiz]

Sure Bell System and Western Electric no longer exist as they once did, but their advertising remains to remind us of what is true to this day: we have a need for self expression and individualism in a world of mass production. It could be argued that this is especially true through our telephone, an object so closely tied to our daily routine. Today, more than ever, it is an extension of ourselves that brings with it the natural desire for personalization.

CaseMate's iMakeMyCase is a service that debuted last week at CES. It lets users customize iPhone cases by choosing background color/texture and layered graphics, then tweak them to their heart's content. Design elements are presented through use of themes in collaboration with designers like Chuck Anderson and Ray Frenden. This lifestyle strategy is similar to Van's Custom Shoes and Burger King's Studio where fans of the fast food chain can create custom t-shirts. This may not be Western Electric in the 1980s, but your iPhone is a status symbol, and CaseMate will help you make it cool.

Truth in Advertising is a running series of advertisements that portray consumers using mobile technology in their everyday life. They take a look at how brands are demonstrating our want and need for mobility. Click here to view previous entries.

Here we see rising pianist Kwan Yi passionately expressing himself on the "nation's fastest 3G network," a performance that speaks to a larger trend being enabled by mobile touchscreen devices. Visit the music section on Apple's app store and a variety of instruments will be served up, many of which even professional musicians have been experimenting with. Recently, Stanford's Mobile Phone Orchestra performed using Smule's Ocarina app. The University of Michigan has an entire course on Building a Mobile Phone Ensemble. Clearly something is at work here.

While there are many instruments available for those interested, the piano seems to be of the most popular. Iano puts the iPhone and iPod touch's multi-touch screen to use by packing a complete four-octave keyboard into a single screen. FingerPiano is similar but also provides Guitar Hero style scrolling guides to help the rookie. YouTube is flooded with users showing off their talent via various apps. This is great, and as the price of the iPhone and basic iPod touch begins to drop we will see even more creative applications. Yan Tiersen combines six iPhones for a proper performance.

Truth in Advertising is a running series of television commercials that portray consumers using mobile technology in their everyday life. They take a look at how brands are demonstrating our want and need for mobility. Click here to view previous entries.

Last Thursday, Verizon debuted a new tough-talking ad for the Droid aimed at making it appear more dude-friendly than that girly iPhone.

“Should a phone be pretty?” it asks, “Should it be a tiara-wearing digitally-clueless beauty pageant queen? Or should it be fast? Racehorse-duct-taped-to-a-Scud-missile fast? We say the latter. So we built the phone that does. Does rip through the Web like a circular saw through a ripe banana. Is it a precious porcelain figurine of a phone? No. It’s not a princess. It’s a robot. A phone that trades hair-do for can-do.”

Phones are the new cars; they are status symbols that we take with us everywhere. Hence, Verizon is hoping men want their phones to have lots of “horsepower.“ As AllThingD puts it:

The male ego is a fragile thing. The last thing you want is a phone that challenges it with an effeminate form factor and pantywaist performance specs. As a guy, you want a phone that doesn’t emasculate you every time you whip it out. Otherwise, you might become insecure and resentful.

You wouldn’t necessary think this Droid ad is taking on the iPhone until the “princess” is shown with a white iPhone. In truth, an iPhone user is 21% more likely to be male according to Nielsen. But perhaps the male/female juxtaposition is not intended literally, but meant rather to imbue the device with certain Y-chromosome qualities. As MocoNews points out, the Droid is noticeably masculine. "Starting with its looks, the device is solid black and is squared off on every corner. There's not an elegant bone in its body. Even the homescreen sports a steel-grey display."

They go on to speculate that the ads might alienate women, as does the eCommerce Times, which asks “What's Verizon trying to accomplish with its characterization of the iPhone as a vapid female in contrast to the testosterone-soaked Droid? Will male AT&T subscribers drop their iPhones -- and their carrier -- in order to prove their manliness? Will women lust after a sexy robot? Are we living in the 1960s? Has Verizon's ad agency lost its mind?”

What do you think? Is this whole concept dated? Does it make you want a Droid? Or get defensive over your iPhone?

Truth in Advertising is a running series of television commercials that portray consumers using mobile technology in their everyday life. They take a look at how brands are demonstrating our want and need for mobility. Click here to view previous entries.

LG has a new series of commercials featuring James Lipton, the host of Inside the Actor's Studio. Positioned as public service announcements, these ads urge teens to "give it a ponder" before sexting or spreading Gossip Girl-style texts.
This particular ad features a teen boy, Stephan, who is having a "steamy back and forth text with his girlfriend Zoë" and is about to send her a "pic of his junk."

While the ad is worth watching just to hear Lipton say these words, do they ring true?

The warning seems to be justified. According to a survey fielded by TRU:

• 18% of teen boys and 22% of teen girls say they have sent/posted nude or seminude pictures or video of themselves
• 71% of teen girls and 67% of teen guys who have sent or posted sexually suggestive content say they have sent/posted this content to a boyfriend/girlfriend.
• 36% of teen girls and 39% of teen boys say it is common for nude or semi-nude photos to get shared with people other than the intended recipient.
• 38% of teen girls and 39% of teen boys say they have had sexually suggestive text messages or emails— originally meant for someone else—shared with them.

So what did teens think? Rebecca Cullers at AdFreak did a (very) informal opinion poll:

My husband happens to have a whole class of 9th graders who saw the ads during homeroom. What did they say? "Why does she have a beard? I don't get it. That's retarded."

Perhaps Lipton's beard-scratching pontification isn't as well-known amongst the under-30 set, but now they will likely know him as "the old guy who says 'tweets about his piece' in that weird commercial."

Truth in Advertising is a running series of television commercials that portray consumers using mobile technology in their everyday life. They take a look at how brands are demonstrating our want and need for mobility. Click here to view previous entries.