Iphone Killer?
October 21, 2009
When marketing and selling to customers, its imperative that you are in tune with what customers demand and deliver the right message and product that coincides with that. As a Boston Venture Capital fund, we are constantly trying to drive home this message once we deploy expansion capital into a portfolio company.
Verizon is taking a very cool marketing approach with its upcoming Droid smartphone DroidDoes.com. With the iPhone being the major incumbent in the smartphone market, Verizon has chosen to attack Apple by keying in on all the features consumers want that the iPhone does not have (and doing it while playing on some of Apple’s marketing flare). In one move, they are exhibiting that they will be providing much of the smartphone features consumers have been asking for and reminding people of iPhone’s limitations.
Will it work? At the end of the day, Verizon still has to match some of the other features the iPhone has that they neglect to mention in this campaign (usability, app universe, form factor, coolness, etc.). Its going to be difficult to take down Apple’s stronghold on the market. Innovation fueled by customer needs/wants that outpaces Apple’s road map and go to market strategy is what its going to take. Curious to see what Verizon can ultimately deliver here…