I wasn’t much excited about Amazon’s new ‘Fire Phone’, because I’ve actually used a Kindle Fire and I know the reality of the situation. What’s always far more interesting to me is the way Amazon markets new products, because overall Amazon does a pretty shitty job at marketing products.
Yes, they have a great website which works well and does a good job at recommending things, but when it comes to the behemoth trying to sell new products (which they’ve made) — well desperation is the word that best sums up their marketing.
Please, just buy this. Now. Please?
In watching the marketing video Amazon prepared for the Fire Phone you will immediately notice one thing: it looks like a knock off of an Apple product video. One where Jony Ive is sitting there talking about design and Schiller is bouncing up and down talking about cool features.
I’ll give Amazon that, they did copy the format. But they royally screwed up the execution.
The people sitting there talking about the Fire Phone seem equal parts confused and exhausted, but the real issue is the real people (aka, not trained actors) that are talking about the phone as they use it.
What you hear is a lot of ‘whoa’, ‘cool’, ‘neat-o Billy’ type of statements. Whether real or contrived, the people in the video clearly want you to know that they think the device is cool.
What you don’t see, and don’t hear, is the usefulness of any of this. Because what Amazon is doing is marketing the features, specs, and wow factor of the device, instead of marketing the end results of the device.
Their video is effectively the bullet points you find on the box.
Amazon, then, is showing you why their device is cool in the phone landscape. Whereas what Apple tends to do is to show you the practical benefits that you, the user, will receive from having an iPhone.
In a typical Apple marketing video what you see is:
- People using, and enjoying using, the device being marketed.
- People accomplishing something of merit with the device.
Whether it is a Christmas ad of an introverted kid making a stellar family video, or a lone videographer shooting video of Niagara falls — what you see is stuff being done. Imagine those ads of Apple’s with the actors in them saying: “whoa look at this parallax.”
With Apple’s ads I often don’t know how people are accomplishing what is shown, but I know that they are accomplishing specific tasks that I often don’t think about doing with my iPhone.
With Amazon’s ads I know some of the things the device has, but am left knowing very little about what I can do with the device. Show me the practical, day-to-day applications of Firefly, not just the feature.
So as a potential customer it becomes more of a challenge to want the Amazon device, based solely on the fact that I really don’t know what the fuck I can do with the device.
Even Samsung does a much better job at this, or Microsoft with the Surface 3 commercials.
Amazon’s marketing is just plain terrible.