Features versus functions: how not to hype a new smart phone

I’ve been seeing a lot of commercials recently about the new Motorola Droid Razr phone. My dad asked me after seeing a recent ad: “what does that phone do?”. I didn’t have an answer. All the commercial showed was the phone flying through the air slicing everything in its path.

Why would I want to go buy that phone? After seeing the ad, I know nothing about what it does or why it is special. And I’m not in the market for a phone that can cut a fire hydrant in two either.

Case in point, the new Razr commercial:

And another longer ad showing features:

It seems that most smart phone manufacturers use features to sell their phones rather than actually showing users what they can do with their phones.

Now, contrast that Razr ad with a typical Apple ad, this one for FaceTime:

To me, the apple ads speaks more to me and captures me emotionally instead of shoving features down my throat (Dual-Core 1.2 GHz Processor + 1GB RAM, made with Kevlar Fibre, etc…).

Most people still don’t know a megapixel from a megabyte but they can immediately see the value of FaceTime, a dead simple UI and actions they do in every day life to help them make a decision on what phone to buy.

The apple commercials never talk about megapixels, megahertz, or RAM. They just show you what you can do with the iPhone. It reminds me so much of the PC versus Mac ads. The PC ads were always fighting over who had the most RAM or hard drive space, when most people really want a pc to get online and print without hassle.

Is the iPhone superior to the Razr? If you look only at specs, maybe (no Kevlar!) But If was going to buy a new phone, I wouldn’t know why I should buy the Razr unless I wanted to slice my way through town.

What keywords drive 97% of Google’s revenue?

Google gets most of it’s revenue from Adwords. But did you ever wonder what the top 20 keywords that drive that volume?

WordStream, a provider of hosted software that automates most of the manual work involved with creating and optimizing both paid and natural search engine marketing campaigns, has done some research to discover which keyword categories get the highest costs per click (CPC) in Google’s AdWords solution.

It’s hard to believe that the top 3 categories of Insurance, Loans and Mortgages make up over 45% of the volume.  When you are spending $45.91 a click you better make sure all of your reporting is in place and you can track inquires, leads and subscribers.

It must pencil out for the Insurance companies to be spending this kind of money or they wouldn’t be such competition.  If you don’t sell Insurance or loans or mortgages, be sure you are still tracking your spending and can report on how your users flow through your site and have attribution to show for it.

Social Media Revolution

Still unsure whether or not social media should be part of your digital marketing plan? Check out this fantastic video highlighting key statistics on social media.

A fun view of Portland Oregon

In my recent travels to Hawaii and Orlando, I’ve had to explain to people why Portland is such a great place to live. Sure, it’s no Hawaii, but it does have it’s high points which this video outlines nicely.  Great job Travel Oregon.