What the hell is Vonage thinking? I have never seen a more ass-backwards marketing campaign in my entire life.
Exhibit 1: (Found here on QT3)
A banner add that says “No Nerds Needed”
WTF. The Nerd is the prime candidate for this service. I don’t give a crap how much they WANT regular people to subscribe to their service because in general the Nerds are going to be the early adopters. Are they doing so well that they can now say “fuck you” to all the Nerds?
Exhibit 2: (Found on TV)
A spot that says “People do stupid things” and cuts to people blowing themselves up or toppling trees on their truck and continues “like pay too much for phone service”
So after firmly establishing themselves as anti-Nerd on the home of nerds, they now call everybody else stupid on the home of the stupid?
I don’t get it…is this company financed by Saudi Arabia or something that they can just insult everybody with their moronic ad campaign?
Nerds as early adopters of technology do not need to be marketed. Generally, they already know about the technology, do their own reasearch and will get the service based on their own opinion, and the opinions of their nerdish peers, or online equivalents. And money spent beyond getting the product some exposure is money wasted on the early adopters.
The bulk of the revenue for Vonage is going to come from the masses. These are the people that they need to market to. These are the people they need to convince to get their service. These are the people that need to be assured that the service is as simple getting phone service from the incumbent telco. In other words, No Nerds Needed.
Well, they’re not calling everyone else stupid. They’re highlighting stupid people and assuming – correctly – that the viewer does not consider themselves stupid and therefore doesn’t want to be associated with the stupid people doing stupid things they’re seeing in the ad. :)
It’s a stretch, I know, but they’re definitely not calling every stupid in that ad. They’re just saying, “hey, we know you’re not stupid like these guys. So exert your smartness and join our service.”
Yeah but by definition the people they’re trying to sell to are the people that are currently stupid enough to buy overpriced phone service from some other provider.
Yeah but by definition the people they’re trying to sell to are the people that are currently stupid enough to buy overpriced phone service from some other provider.[/quote]
An overwhelming percentage of stupid people think they are actually smart.
Not only am I stupid because I overpay for phone service, Vonage doesn’t even provide service to my area, so I can’t do the smart thing and Nerd out to my VoIP phone.
Yeah but by definition the people they’re trying to sell to are the people that are currently stupid enough to buy overpriced phone service from some other provider.[/quote]
An overwhelming percentage of stupid people think they are actually smart.[/quote]
Nice not to be one of them, huh, Bill? I’ve always been thankful for that.
Not to suggest you’re stupid, jpinard, but do you mean “hate”? heh heh
And Spoofy, they’d be crazy to market to nerds, especially if it were at the expense of the general public. I’m the nerdiest person I know, but really had no interest in learning something new, especially to replace something as simple as phone service.
I’ve only seen the tv commercials a couple times, but I hardly think the message is “You’re all morons!”
dannimal, are you sure they don’t provide service? As long as you have broadband, I thought they worked anywhere in the US.
I have noticed that often people of lesser intellect often take things more personally and get far more worked up over things than smarter people do. The obvious exception to this is the nerd, who in many cases gets incredibly emotional about an issue even while espousing rationality as the basis for all things (See the furious debate over which console, the hatred of MS, and the like).
But, nerds aside, after my experiences in retail dealing with folks of all stripes, I made an observation. The white trash people, the dumbest and least human-like of the customers, invariably had a far more self-centered view of themselves than anyone else. For example, if the ATM was out of money, it was not just one of those things, but instead the bank was out to fuck with them. If they had a late fee on a video, I was personally going out of my way to steal their hard-earned cash.
The same applies to people who freak out over national IDs. “The government can track us! aaaiiiieee!!!” The Cold Hard KoontzCapped fact is that the government does not really give one flying fuck about you. The more you believe that it could happen that somehow you will end up on a “list”, the more personally you take things, and consequently, the dumber I believe you are.
Having used this as the underlying principle in observations of people, I have noted that it often holds true. People take Paris Hilton’s fame personally, they are upset by it, even though it has no effect on them whatsoever. People get pissed if a game reviewer gives their favorite game a low review, though it does not make the game less enjoyable. People see an ad campaign, and are offended because it is somehow insulting, rather than a somewhat lighthearted jest. I believe that the correlation between lack of intelligence and overpersonalization is clear.
Observe it for yourself, and ask yourself “Does this affect me? If not, why am I so pissed?”. The answer may be that you are in fact a dumbass.
But, see, that kind of invalidates your theory (this part of it, anyway). The tendency of a person to be histrionic over whatever seems to operate independently of intellect, IMO. Age, maturity, wisdom, temperance; these are all factors, and intellect can be one of them, just any of those mentioned can be, but I don’t think it’s a direct correlation. And for reactions to it, I figure the internet and certain situations that I’ve been personally exposed to where the mean IQ was pretty high (medical school, for one) are proof enough to me that smart people spaz out as easily as dumb people. Aren’t dumb people sheep, or summat? Easily placated by Michael Bay films (oh Jesus that new one by him looks awful, the one with the robot plane that gets STRUCK BY LIGHTNING and becomes a killing machine), reality TV, fast food, et cetera. Ignorance is bliss, ain’t it?
That’s partly intellect, mostly maturity level (which are obviously related). The Not Me Ghost survives childhood, just in a different, far more obnoxious form. You shoulda seen the people I dealt with at the casino. I know what you’re saying, is what I’m saying, and I agree with you on this point. But being self-centered isn’t a sole conceit of the dopey, either. Yeah, hardly.
Well, how about not wanting your ID tied to some numbers and whatnot that could easily be hijacked by hax0rz and ID thieves? Is that the same? Seems to me very well-balanced, reasonable people take precautions to avoid that. We’re all paranoid. Because, you know, my friend knew this one dude who got his ID stolen and…
I tired to masturbate to her porn tape and couldn’t because she was so lame, and sooner or later I’m going accidentally watch a minute or two of House of Wax on cable when I unwittingly view it. So, pal, I’m very upset at all the wrongs Paris done me. Anyway, I don’t take her personally, but she is annoying as all Hell, there is no avoiding that.
You know, people - especially people on the internet - are easily prone to hyperbole. Just sayin’.
So, the gist of this is: dumb people are like way more bitter, man?
Hrm, I think we’re defining smart differently. I think of smart as rational and even-keeled, able to apply reason to a problem. Admittedly, there is a difference between that and between being a math genious or whatever, which is also part of intelligence.
This is probably somewhat due to culture differences, here in the heart of the midwest, I often see people who I think are idiots getting upset about things like where gay people stick their penises.
However, your point is well-taken, that maturity and the like play a role. Perhaps I need a new word to describe the masses of easily-offended, over-zealous, intellectually challenegd folks who are, in my opinion, filling the world with vapid rhetoric and misplaced outrage. Also, dumb people aren’t bitter, they are angry. There’s a difference!
PS: about national IDs, it’s fine to be concrened over them and the potential implications. It’s not OK to freak out and rail against the government for trying to fuck us all up the ass and remove all our precious freedoms.
Holy shit, at first I was all “homeslice, you’re seriously debating the Zen of Blockbuster CustomerServiceCounter guy?” and then I got to that last line and it all came clear. More fool I.
Fucking painful, kinda, but still funny.
Couldn’t have said it better myself OH WAIT I GUESS I DID BY PARAPHRASING
Who cares about their marketing? I started using Vonage years before they started their marketing campaigns and it’s great. So just get it and stop paying too much for your phone service!
Actually, the horrible “music” in those Vonage ads has ensured that I will NEVER use their service. They have scarred my brain…the irony is that their banner is sitting just above this text as I am writing it. QT3 is quite crafty.
It’s Comcast’s Digital Phone service that’s not available to me, my bad.
Someone explain this Vonage setup to me. The “phone adapter” takes in ethernet and puts out phone line, so you connect your phone to it. Great. My two phones are in the bedroom and the kitchen, and the cable modem is in my office. How would I connect the phone adapter to the cable modem (or the router, which is just behind the modem currently) without having to pay some ludicrous amount to have cat-5 run all over the house? Is there a wireless version of the phone adapter? Would I need wireless VoIP phone(s)?
