Good Ad/Bad Ad: Smartphones in Ads

Good ad: GEICO – Smartphone, dumb things

Why it’s good:

• It’s true. Smartphones have changed our world for the better (we’re never without a map, for instance) but people have also made some really stupid apps. GEICO has it right.
• It’s funny. White-collar workers goofing off on their phones is a pretty common sight, at least in my office. Probably in a lot of others too.
• GEICO’s commercials are often part of a larger campaign (gecko, caveman, this guy), so we recognize this as a GEICO ad as soon as it begins.
• I’m not a big fan of the guy kicking the chair around at the end (why?) but it’s not too distracting.

Bad ad: Verizon – Droid Incredible 2 “Surprise”

Why it’s bad:

• Fourteen of thirty-one seconds are spent on a closeup of a woman’s face. With a voiceover. She’s not even talking.
• It tries really hard. She doesn’t have a good “surprised face,” so she’s going to look up videos on her phone? The only video you should be trying to sell on a phone is something like this.
• People don’t make buying decisions standing in the parking lot. It seems rather unsafe to me.
• Other Verizon ads show the staff being helpful, but this is literally just a woman deciding to buy a phone.

Three Tips for App Developers

Let me begin by saying that I’m not an app developer. I took two years of computer science in high school, but that’s it. I am, however, a serious nerd, and use apps every day. As such, I’ve come up with three things for app developers to think about:

1.) Turn off music and sound effects by default. There’s nothing more jarring than scaring everyone around me (or myself) when I open your app. This may be a pet peeve, but it makes me really, really angry.

2.) Unless you have a proven track record of app development or have a surefire winner on your hands, don’t charge more than 99 cents. iTunes set the price point years ago, but it still stands today — it’s significantly easier for me to justify a 99 cent app purchase than it is for me to justify $1.99. In most cases, I haven’t used your app before, so 99 cents feels like a risk I can take. And I find myself doing it a lot more often.

3.) Shoot to fill a “micro moment.” That is, an app I can jump into, play for a few minutes while I wait in line, and then shut down without consequence. Cut the Rope (and of course Angry Birds) do this very well. Both are long games, in that there are more than 100 levels, but each level takes 30-45 seconds to complete, meaning you can get out of it whenever you want.

Follow these tips and I’m a lot likelier to purchase your app and be happy with it. What would you like to see from app developers?

How Personal is too Personal?

Every Monday, I answer a social media manners question. Yes, Virginia, just like real life, there is a right and wrong way to act on the Internet. Please be polite, it makes everyone’s day that much better.

DEAR JOHN: I recently followed somebody and immediately got a mention from him asking how my weekend was. Admittedly, I had tweeted that I was excited it was Friday, but being asked about my weekend seemed too personal to me. What’s your take on this? –TOO SOON

DEAR TOO SOON: I absolutely understand where you’re coming from here. Despite my interest in social media, I am wary about putting too much of my personal life online. This is, for example, why I’m almost never on Facebook — giving my information, images and thoughts to a company like Facebook scares me.

Personally, I wouldn’t have asked about your weekend if you had just followed me. How your weekend was is no business of mine, unless you mention it to me first or I was there with you. I wouldn’t have a problem asking somebody how their weekend was if I had established a relationship with them, but this sounds too soon to me. I’m sure that the question was innocent, and I do believe Twitter should be used for conversation, but please keep it professional and related to mutually interesting topics.