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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

iPhone, anyone?

http://www.apple.com/iphone/usingiphone/guidedtour.html

"We want to make choosing a service plan simple and easy, so every plan includes unlimited data with direct Internet access, along with Visual Voicemail and a host of other goodies," said Apple CEO Steve Jobs. "We think these three plans give customers the flexibility to experience all of iPhone’s revolutionary features at affordable and competitive prices."

The base plan will be $59.99 USD and will get you 450 anytime minutes along with 5000 nights and weekend. The $79.99 plan bumps you up to 900 anytime minutes and unlimited nights and weekends. The $100 rate plan will get you 1350 anytime minutes alongside unlimited nights and weekends.

As Steve Jobs said, each plan allows for unlimited data (emails and web surfing), 200 text messages, as well as rollover minutes and free mobile-to-mobile for anyone on AT&T.

There will also be a one-time $36 activation charge.


EDIT: I just watched the 20 min. guided tour. Hmm.... Nice!
 
It's funny the way the companies choose to advertise for cell phones. I wouldn't say I think the Verizon ads are brilliant, but they drive home the basic point -- we have good service, when you want to make a call, you'll be able to do so. Even if the ads are a bit cheesy I get the point.

The AT&T ads, despite me not liking the company, aren't horrible either. They certainly drove home the point about Cingular and AT&T joining together, and I guess that was important to them. Maybe they think it's implied that if you have two providers join, you get "twice the service." So ok fair enough.

Then we have T-Mobile, which I really don't understand. I totally understand how you advertise, let's say, women's shoes to women, because uhh, most guys don't buy women's shoes. Unless they are for women, haha. And I get why makeup is advertised to women, because again, women buy makeup generally, not guys. What I don't get is how it is beneficial for a cell phone provider, which provides a service that both genders certainly use and need to use quite a bit, for business and pleasure, decides it is a great idea to make all of their ads girly and completely insulting to men. I mean why would I want to buy a phone where I have Catherine Zeta Jones talking with PINK text and borders everywhere, and telling me how cute it is that you get WHENEVER minutes (what am I a Valley Girl now? Oh my god like wow I have like so many WHENEVER minutes it's soooo totally awesome like whatever!). It's even cuter, apparently, that "couples talk free," oh how adorable, isn't that cute? Couples talk FREE. Wow it's just all too cute for words. The pink text at the end always makes me want to switch to T-Mobile, no doubt about that!

Ugg... haha. I hope they have great service and great plans, because I'd feel kind of ashamed to pull out a phone with that logo on it after their advertising campaign. My dad uses T-Mobile I think, lol, which is really funny because both my mom and I hated his phone service, we both used Verizon and his phone never seemed to work. But then again... my dad isn't very tech savvy so it's possible he was just not using it right. I think they badly need a redo. Anyone here getting a RED want to offer some spec. ads for T-Mobile? I think it'd be fun, couldn't be any worse than what they have. ;)
 
JonathanLB said:
Anyone here getting a RED want to offer some spec. ads for T-Mobile? I think it'd be fun, couldn't be any worse than what they have. ;)
Click to expand...

This brings up something (way off topic) that I was wondering about....

Do people ever create an ad on their own and then offer to sell it?

There are a few products for which you could make an ad without using the specific product during the shoot. Then you could customize the ad depending on which company you shop it around to. It could be as simple as just putting a picture of the product along with some text at the end....

I've got some ideas for some hard liquor commercials (even though I don't drink).

Zeta Jones's deal with T-Mobile began in 2002 and has been the longest celebrity spokesperson deal in the wireless industry so far. In 2005, T-Mobile extended her contract another two years and she reportedly brings in anywhere between $8-9 million a year for the gig.

from wikipedia: In September 2006, T-Mobile dropped Zeta-Jones for a more “man on the street” advertising campaign.
 
HAHA, that's kind of funny. I remember when she first appeared on the scene, when I saw her in The Mask of Zorro I guess it was, I was mesmerized, I was like wow this girl is going to be huge. Well, she was, but I just was never very interested with her after a while. I guess it was the Michael Douglas thing, I'm not really sure.

Curran -- we were going to try some spec ads, actually I had one for the RED that I did a casting call for but we never ended up shooting it. Not that I can't still do it. And also not that it is a real spec. ad, i.e. it's not like we would think we could sell it to RED, it was purely for fun. Basically it was this kid (late teen / early 20s) who goes in to talk to his mom about "this cool new gadget that the guy from Oakley came up with" and the mom is reading a magazine, not paying much attention, but she asks what it is, he says it's a camera, she says, "Is it expensive?" He says, "No it's really cheap compared to other similar cameras on the market." She is like, "That's nice..." So he asks if he can charge it to her credit card and if it can be an x-mas present. She hands him her purse only barely paying attention to him, he walks away: "Sweet...!"

I want to make a fake Red Bull ad for my friend David, the guy is seriously half the reason that company stays in business. When he moved from San Jose to Los Angeles, I bet company execs were like, "Hmm... since March, our sales in San Jose have been down 20%, yet our sales in Los Angeles have increased 5%. I wonder why that is..." Little do they know that David consumes about 5 Red Bulls per day. I've never seen anyone drink Red Bull like water before until I met him. He can go through 12 in about 24-36 hours, it's actually quite disturbing! I limit energy drink consumption to a maximum of one per day, and generally 2-3 per week.

Those two paragraphs remind me of something hilarious David said the other day. We were talking about how if we rent the REDs out, we have to go with them to make sure our investment is safe and our equipment handled well, etc. I said that the RED is like a girlfriend, you want to go everywhere with it. David said, "No, it's much more than that. Even for girlfriends it is good to let them go out on their own sometimes. The RED never goes out alone." LOL
 
Curran Giddens said:
Do people ever create an ad on their own and then offer to sell it?
Click to expand...

Curran - there is actually a "niche" in the ad space for just that - spec ads.

Many "would-be" directors are shooting and uploading to the internet.

Companies LOVE this - free ads. It's why you see so many corp. sponsored "film contests" -

If it goes "viral" it can help land a real job or agent for the filmmaker.

ANOTHER way to approach it is as follows:

Approach an AD AGENCY. Often, they have complete story boards of pitches that their clients LOVED but couldn't afford, etc. - it won;t be your "vision" - but the agency already has the account with the corp. client - so, the "right" people will see your work -

I've never done this - but I know people who have, and SOLD the ad after-the-fact to the client through the agency.
 
offhollywood said:
Curran - there is actually a "niche" in the ad space for just that - spec ads.

Many "would-be" directors are shooting and uploading to the internet.

Companies LOVE this - free ads. It's why you see so many corp. sponsored "film contests" -

If it goes "viral" it can help land a real job or agent for the filmmaker.

ANOTHER way to approach it is as follows:

Approach an AD AGENCY. Often, they have complete story boards of pitches that their clients LOVED but couldn't afford, etc. - it won;t be your "vision" - but the agency already has the account with the corp. client - so, the "right" people will see your work -

I've never done this - but I know people who have, and SOLD the ad after-the-fact to the client through the agency.
Click to expand...

That does not happen much. They are companies all over the net selling "stock footage" TV ads.
Here are a few:

http://www.spotrunner.com/

http://www.socaltech.com/fullstory/0002933.html

http://news.com.com/Spot+Runner+culls+unsold+TV+spots/2100-1024_3-6049354.html

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2007/biz2/0702/gallery.nextnet.biz2/19.html

Other spot services

http://www.mpowermedia.com/?gclid=CLvzwMKTu4wCFRdYTAodoiy8YA

http://www.commercialcreator.com/packages.php

http://adedge.com/
 
JonathanLB said:
What I don't get is how it is beneficial for a cell phone provider, which provides a service that both genders certainly use and need to use quite a bit, for business and pleasure, decides it is a great idea to make all of their ads girly and completely insulting to men. I mean why would I want to buy a phone where I have Catherine Zeta Jones talking with PINK text and borders everywhere, and telling me how cute it is that you get WHENEVER minutes (what am I a Valley Girl now? Oh my god like wow I have like so many WHENEVER minutes it's soooo totally awesome like whatever!). It's even cuter, apparently, that "couples talk free," oh how adorable, isn't that cute? Couples talk FREE. Wow it's just all too cute for words. The pink text at the end always makes me want to switch to T-Mobile, no doubt about that!
Click to expand...

Don't underestimate the power of marketing to women. Single women are a huge portion of the population as are women in relationships that still take a highly active role in decision-making. It's a great marketing angle for T-Mobile and I think it worked well for them. Even now that Zeta-Jones is no longer doing ads for them, the T-Mobile image is still soft and so are the new commercials, at least the couple I've seen.

Other cell companies market to women too, just not on the same level as T-Mobile. Why else would Verizon offer pink RAZR and pink Chocolate phones? I see with pink RAZR and pink Chocolate phones all over the place. It's gagging really, but that's good marketing.

Another look at a different angle to the market is Boost Mobile. They're taking Nextel phones and service plans and pimping them with a ghetto / gangsta image. They're starting to go after the skater market too...
 
Well, that's true, often women do make a lot of the household decisions and bill paying and all of that. So if you get that half of the relationship to buy a T-Mobile maybe you get the guy too ;) If I got talked into that by a girl I'd feel whipped, though, LOL.

Girls talk on the phone probably a lot more than guys, so I can't really say I blame T-Mobile but I wonder if there isn't a way to market where you are catching the girls but also the guys, too. Like I never see T-Mobile ads in Maxim trying to show me how rugged their phones are and how cool they are, why a "real man like you" would want a T-Mobile phone, etc., haha.
 
Curran Giddens said:
This brings up something (way off topic) that I was wondering about....

Do people ever create an ad on their own and then offer to sell it?

There are a few products for which you could make an ad without using the specific product during the shoot. Then you could customize the ad depending on which company you shop it around to. It could be as simple as just putting a picture of the product along with some text at the end....

I've got some ideas for some hard liquor commercials (even though I don't drink).

Zeta Jones's deal with T-Mobile began in 2002 and has been the longest celebrity spokesperson deal in the wireless industry so far. In 2005, T-Mobile extended her contract another two years and she reportedly brings in anywhere between $8-9 million a year for the gig.

from wikipedia: In September 2006, T-Mobile dropped Zeta-Jones for a more “man on the street” advertising campaign.
Click to expand...
Funny you should mention that. I have shot just such an ad for A bank and made 6 different versions and passed it on to 6 different banks.

Will keep you posted if it worked.
 
rameshjai said:
Funny you should mention that. I have shot just such an ad for A bank and made 6 different versions and passed it on to 6 different banks.

Will keep you posted if it worked.
Click to expand...

Good luck with your bank ads. Maybe all 6 banks will want to use your ad. Then you can auction it off to the highest bidder!

I think it would be fun to do some ads for hard liquor. A lot of the ads I've seen just have some hot women dancing in a club, etc. set to some good music, and don't even show the product until the very end. Seems like a good excuse for casting only super-hot young women in skimpy outfits.... :innocent:
 
Heck yeah, there's nothing quite like that. A few of the girls I've auditioned so far... dang! Any excuse to see lots of hot chicks AND call it "work," well, that's just too good to be true. ;)
 
Now making calls with my shiny new iPhone. Waltzed right in to the Apple store this morning, no waiting in line.

Unless I discover a host of bugs, later, I'm thrilled. It's Star Trek, guys.

Good shooting and best regards,

Leo
 
Waited in line yesterday for entirely too long at an AT&T store, went home with nothing. Waited in line for under 10 minutes at at Apple's Fifth Ave. NYC retail store today, went home with an 8 GB iPhone. It was activated about 10 minutes after I got it home, and my existing number was ported from T-Mobile within an hour.

Slick.
 
I'm typing this from my new iPhone and I'm loving it.
I've tried most carriers and they're all pretty bad in my opinion,so I'm more than happy to have my phone even if its AT&T.
 
Its a great device, even for 1st generation (which I feel all 1st gen should have a fine print that says..."product beta test")...BUT, similar to RED...Apple did a great deal of testing with real users in the field before launch so as a result its a smooth piece of hardware that in my opinion lives up to most the hype (which I also find insane)...

But if your like me and have been holding out for proper a business phone (blackberry/Treo etc)...then this is it, and IMHO none of the others hold a candle stick to this beast.

Yeah its not perfect...but damn close to it. ;)

Best
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
Why is it American materialism? You can't honestly tell me that people won't be lining up all over the world when international release dates come and go. But materialism for sure. OTOH, I may not be buying an iPhone, but I'd love to have an updated iPod with the slick new touch screen and 32 to 64 GB of solid state storage. :)
Click to expand...

Because it's being sold here in America ONLY.

JohnG
 
The 8GB models were completely sold out here in LA today (Sat) so I bought the 4GB for the wife. No line and less than 20 iPhones left at 6PM. You know there's a friggin' warehouse full of them some where - phased release what a pain.

Anyway, easy activation - loaded the photos and music - very cool device to say the least. Working on the loading of QT movies to show trailers and demos of works in progress for a pitch meeting tomorrow - the picture and audio are amazing.
 
My wife's best friend bought one.. I played with it tonight, it's really cool. Now my wife thinks she wants one. I stalled her off temporarily because we have to pay a disconnect fee to Verizon and she got discouraged when she saw online order was a 2-4 week lead time. But who knows how long that will hold her back. Heh.
 
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