By Many were wondering when Sprint would get the train rolling on their traditional advertisement campaign for the HTC EVO 4G. While word of mouth is a strong and cheap solution, you couldn’t expect Sprint to just stand by as the best phone they’ve gotten in a while silently moves to store shelves.
Tonight, their EVO 4G campaign begins and it makes a lot more sense than what they did with Palm for the launch of the Pre (seriously, that lady haunted my dreams for weeks, it seemed). If you can’t watch the video, it basically plays to the phone’s “EVO” name as it shows the “evo”lution of technology in domino-style from the first wheel all the way up to the very device they’re advertising.
What do you think of the ad? Should Sprint add in a couple more to keep their campaign fresh?
interesting.
i like the ad, but it wouldnt hurt to have a couple more with a different flavor. perhaps showing the phones capabilities.
Mixed thoughts. It’s an entertaining commercial, but I think more can be said of the phone itself. While I understand Sprint pushing the 4G, to be honest, it’s not a feature I will use as WiMax is not anywhere near me and won’t be for a few years. I’m buying this phone based on all of the OTHER features and regardless of what they say, most people don’t live under WiMax and will buy the phone for the same reason – it’s got great specs!
Make a commercial about the features people will actually use. I salivate over the Android OS (2.2 coming soon), 8MP camera, 720p video, 4.3″ screen, Sense UI.
Oh yeah, can’t forget tethering.
More manly perhaps?
They need change their Ad Agency and fire the entire Marketing dept. Yes, it’s that bad
cool. but weak. guess nothing can top the droid ads, but they should come with it.
Yeah they need to highlight the functionality of the phone. 4G doesn’t really matter to most people. They need to show what 4G can do. Like have the Evo and another phone compete with each other on speed of rendering pages or something and show how much faster it is.
wooohooo! i predicted quite similar to this for the evo commercial! *pats self on back*
Snooze. Everything just falls in a line, thus making the Rube Goldberg machine (which is way overplayed lately) predictable. I feel like I’ve heard that same wussy piano melody over 9000 times in ads, and the message also seems a tad arrogant; The space shuttle? Pfft, just paving the way for our phone, and even though 2G and 3G came before it we won’t show those. Not the worst ad, but I’m already sick of it and I only watched it 3 times.
@Jim & Don
I’m with you guys weak ass $|#% !!!!!
nice, but weak. They need to do better, appeal more to the common audience and not so much to the business class.
Boo Sprint needs Verizon’s commercial agency.
Boo. Take it from the Droid ads: Show the phone, poke the phone, show what the phone does. Show that it is faster than everything else. When I watch this commercial I’m like, “Am I buying a wheel? a train? a car? a spaceship?” Put your product on the screen. Use every second you’ve paid for to show off your product.
I agree…what freaking marketing people do they have at Sprint? This is the time Sprint can rise to the occasion and this is the best you got? You have FINALLY a device that will trump the Iphone. And this is your ad? Seriously?
I think it is a great first teaser…..that should have been started a month ago building he suspense. Did no one learn anything from the droid ads? In the beginning it was about building up the hype and mystery before before backing it up with The awesome specs/features. People were excited by the droid before they actually knew what it was, he’ll when I saw the first commercial I went to the website to see what “droid” was. Did verizon spend alot of money hyping the machine? Yes. But I’m pretty sure they made it all back and then some in the first month alone. Likei said it’s a good beginning commercial, but it needed to come out a month ago not 2 days before launch. When will they ever learn. Time for sprint and tmobile to get new marketing departments.
this is not exciting this is fail. sprint/htc, please watch the droid commercial from novemeber to see how a commercial should be done for a phone launch.
That isn’t anywhere neat as exciting as the Droid or Incredible commercials.
Seriously, show the f*****g phone already! I have no idea what this ad is for until the last 4 seconds. They just wasted 87% of the money spent on it on the hope that people will buy a product so they can feel like they are a part of history. Good luck with that. Show the product. Show what it can do. Cut the pansy narrator and the bunny rabbit and the piano and old timey cuteness. This ad also admits that their product is not revolutionary, but merely evolutionary, thus it too will be obsolete by the next best thing.
AD FAIL.
Man, they haven’t learned a thing from the disastrous Palm Pre ads. People want to see the damn phone in action.
Look at all the great iPhone/iPad apps. No matter what you think of the devices themselves, the ads are great because it tells you exactly what you can do with them.
They desperately need new marketing people.
I agree with Jason ! and Alex, and whoever else thinks this is pretty lame.
Its a good add, but I think it needs to be paired up with at least one other commercial that shows what the phone can do. I don’t think the average cell phone user knows exactly what 4G is. Or, if they do know, but they aren’t in a 4G area, they need to show why the phone would be good anyway.
garbage ad. droid ads are way better. this phone looks garbage just going according to the ad. how about plug up the phone to a dead computer and show the internet working? show something, damn.
Stupid add . They should watch Verizon commercials
Yeah, most customers do not live in 4G area, so, um, why do I need this phone???
Could the guy sound more pussified. They shouldn’t have had the voice over, it should have been silent and then the last thing should have fallen on a steel case that said evo 4g on the side. It would have been like the teasers verizon did before the droid came out. Then they could have one that shows what the phone does on the 4th.
I am so pumped to get my phone the day after tomorrow. The ad just seems a little weak in conveying the power of this phone. 8 mega pixel camera, front facing camera, 4.3″ display, 8 connection wifi hotspot! Seems like there was more to say. But I suppose they are conveying it’s a first. It certainly is.
Wow…either the advertising agency doesn’t understand the product, Sprint doesn’t understand what it is, or they do, but just underestimate the strengh of the Evo (and other Android O/S phones) and its future.
I LIKE THE AD, BUT THEY SHOULD HAVE AIRED IT ABOUT A MONTH AGO. THIS WEEK SHOULD BE ALL ABOUT WHAT IT CAN DO. MOST OF US THAT WANT THE PHONE WILL NOT HAVE ACCESS TO 4G.
These type of high-concept ads NEVER work. Remember when Nissan launched the Infiniti brand way back when and all they showed was a bunch of peaceful forest views and chirping crickets with no car in sight? Yeah, it didn’t do much for them then. Same goes for the Palm Pre and the creepy girl. Stupid marketing people want to be high-concept artists instead of actually try selling the product. Frustrating as hell.
yeah when droid came out they had fighter jets and falling capsules and didn’t show the actual phone until later.
This is not the commercial to compete with the droids. They need something much better, I have and love the phone and this commercial still does nothing for me.
You people need to stop complaining so much about the Evo commercial. Evidently Sprint is doing it’s job because it got you people talking. Well done Sprint.
I am a big Sprint fan and anxiously await this phone, but, this ad isn’t going to sell nearly as many phones as the recent Verizon ad for the incredible that at least describes some of the features of the phone. Maybe they are waiting until they have 4G everywhere to really push this phone.
I cannot believe some do not get it, “evolution meets the EVO.” This is not the only ad Sprint will have. As far as I can remember, Sprint has never aired a commercial during a soft launch.
Stupid ad but in 1 day I’ll make my own ad with my own phone wanna watch lol!
i must agree…sprint or whomever was in charge of that commercial sure did a crappy job, god that was boring. now verizon commercials keeps u interested. sprint needs to learn from verizon on how to market but then again verizon needs to follow sprint’s footsteps and offer a $69.00 unlimted everything plan.
me thinks this sucks!
They have to do one with a scene of cave men sitting around a fire just grubbing on a mammoth and something falls from the sky hits one of them on the head, he grabs it looks at it pan to all of the other cave men scratching their heads looking confused, when it goes back to him he is wearing a tuxedo, drinking a martini and starts taking video of his friends, with a British accent he says wow this thing records in HD and now to upload this to YouTube over my 4g connection….there we go. screen goes to black says EVOlution and then below it evo 4g…………….Sprint……you can thank me later. :)
“Stupid ad but in 1 day I’ll make my own ad with my own phone wanna watch lol!”
I’d like to see an Android Flicks campaign like the ones for Firefox. :)
Classy in terms of production values, but it doesn’t grab anyone’s attention sufficiently.
@ari-free: those jet commercials aired before Droid was released. They were teaser ads.
From what I understand of Sprint’s ad campaign plans for the EVO, this is just supposed to be a introduction ad. Every week for the next month Sprint will debut new ads highlighting various features. I personally can’t wait to see what they do to show off allllll this bad boy can do.
I would have loved to see the circuit cards knock over an iPhone, then the iPhone falls on its face in front of the EVO. Great ad though, any advertising for Android in this polished manner can only be good for the OS.
The only commercial that might be worse than this… was the commercial for the Palm Pre.
@ari-free Yes that’s true, but the fighter jet commercial got your attention and made you want to know more. However, with this commercial I can’t say the same thing.
Sprint really should’ve been pushing the Evo sooner, and harder. They need to focus more on the features, and how it whups the iPhone’s butt. Look at Verizon’s successful Droid campaign – most people call any Android phone a Droid now!
So… what they are saying is first sucks because something better will come along later. All you have to do it wait for it.
This is a commercial by Sprint not HTC. They still have to remain somewhat neutral to the rest of the other smartphones they’re selling. All the marketing ad is emphasizing is that they’re the first network to have a 4G network compared to Verizon and AT&T. It will be HTC’s job to make a commercial that demonstrates why their smartphone is better than the iPhone. But then again, it would have been to their advantage to do HTC a favor in showcasing what they could do with an EVO 4G on the Sprint network.
Very pretty AD, point..”evolution, starting something new everybody will plagerize.” Imitation is the greatest form of flattery. I presume this is the underlying message. Go to your local Sprint store and get hooked into a new contract or buy, upsell, upsell… What’s with the rabbit? This message was written on an iPhone. :)
Why the heck was there a bunny in this ad in the first place? I don’t get. It doesn’t make me think FIRST. Makes me think LAST, because if you think about the childrens book the turtle wins. Big Loss!