Feb 9, 2010

AT&T's Marketing plan, or Favors for friends

Back in December, my friend, Ashleigh, casually mentioned a marketing/promotional campaign she was taking part in and wondered if I'd be interested in helping her with it. I said yes after she explained that I would get an iphone for free, I mean why would anyone pass that up? The campaign was simple. Take an iphone around and take pictures or video of the various things you do during a week and comment on how the AT&T network makes it possible. I thought the idea was good enough, and easy to execute. Since I'm sort of in the market for a new phone it seemed like the perfect excuse to test-run an iphone.

I was supposed to get the phone on a Friday morning, which would give me five days to try it out and complete the project before handing the phone over to Ashleigh. As circumstances played out I didn't get the phone until Saturday night and was unable to register it with the program until Monday afternoon. I eventually got some posts on the website. The posts are kinda corny, I know, but with the iphone it was pretty easy to upload so kudos for that.

I've been around iphones long enough to recognize their appeal so when I got my hands on one of my "own" I was excited to really see how it performed. The funny part is that up until the last day, I found it to be more of a nuisance than a boon. It felt like another piece of tech that I had to carry around for a few days before I could offload it onto someone else. Cellphones are an important tool for a journalist and having to carry two phones just felt bulky and unnecessary. As a joke, my friend, Dez, said she would text me on the iphone on my last day with it. Ironically, sending text messages all day proved to be more of a selling point than anything else I did with the phone.

As I find myself looking for a phone to help me do more and be more efficient I can honestly say that my three days with the iphone went a long way. I'm not sure if I'm completely sold just yet but I'll definitely give Apple more consideration when my contract is up.

No comments:

Post a Comment