Fine, I give in--thoughts on the Sprint Widget

I first heard about the Sprint widget a few days ago at about 2am from a Google alert (I'm a Goodby Silverstein and Partners fan and I have a GSP alert--no teasing please) and was excited to find a little late night entertainment. I regret to say, however, that my initial response wasn't much more than a shoulder shrug and I deleted the email. 

But since those early morning hours, I can't seem to stop finding people talking about it, so I'm breaking and joining the discussion.

In favor of the work, I think Mike Kellogg did a beautiful job and certainly made each tiny space a part of the experience, which ended up keeping me playing with the widget much longer than I would have expected to have done. And in favor of the strategy, it directly relates this idea of "now" to measurable and entertaining bits of information, even if they aren't actually accurate or are based on annual (or longer) averages instead of actual up-to-"now" updates.

But my frustration with the piece is that they were so close to bring their strategy to life, and yet they missed the opportunity.  As you all probably know by now, I'm a big fan of adding value to the consumers. Tweeting back and forth with Paul Isakson, we discussed how the widget was alright but would have been significantly cooler if the features were more useful, which brings us to the big missed opportunity: If it had more useful features that were up-to-the-minute, people would be more apt to want the product for on-the-go internet. This would take the idea of "This is Now" and make it much more relevant to the consumer and the product, supporting a much more direct path to sales. 

Some may argue that they didn't have to make it about the product, that reflecting the idea of instant needs and instant knowledge is enough to support the "This is Now" campaign, which in turn would drive the sales, but I think that both the sales and the widget experience would improve with more useful features on the widget. Besides, just using that insight can open you up to getting lost in the category; there are a number of tech products that could have been promoted using this widget, so Sprint should make sure they get the most out of this extensive project and do what they can to hit it outta the park.

Almost- Samsung, Proactiv, Sprint

I did a fair bit of traveling last week and thus spent a good deal of time thinking about airport advertising. While it seems they've got the idea of "add value" and appropriate sponsorship down pat, there's still a whole lot of bad advertising, wasted money, and poorly-thought-out displays. 

On the bad side, I found a pillar for Samsung that had electric outlets for people to recharge their phones. The space to lay your phone was too small for a laptop, but certainly adequate for a number of people to place their phone while waiting for it to get juiced up. Above the electrical outlets was a hollowed pillar that has a Samsung phone in it with some stats about why its a sweet phone. While I think all of this is well done and an appropriate use of adding value to the consumer while they interact with (or at least think about) your product, there was one huge problem: the pillars were placed on the edge of the main hallways, where there were no chairs to sit and keep watch of your phone as it charged. The nearest chairs were always facing the opposite direction, giving the heavy traffic walking through the terminal painfully easy access to your iPhone, Blackberry, etc. No good.

I also saw, and not for the first time, a large vending machine for...nope, not Apple products this time...Proactiv. So I get that its an interesting shopping experience, certainly something mostly unique. But where was the connection between the product and the mode of purchasing? Not that Apple makes much more sense, but at least there's this idea of new technology that fits with the new purchasing experience. But why Proactiv? Why are acne topical creams being sold so prominently at the airport anyway? I've never once seen anyone go up to the large, branded vending machines. I don't imagine people would want to call attention to themselves while purchasing acne treatements, and yet these vending machines are loud and obtrusive, and not in a good way. Needless to say, I'm not a fan.

I had pictures of both of these taken on my phone but with Samsung phones through Sprint, you can't take your pictures off your phone unless you sign up for picture mail, at $5/month. So...even though it's my content, I can't have it anywhere other than my phone unless I pay. I only just discovered this last week, and I have to say, Sprint, I'm disappointed.