MikeRapin.com Your average geek who happens to be a cynical college student

Something I noticed today

So, it's only 10am and I've already noticed something big(ish) today: A marketing scheme that pushes fear of technology in people.

Now, I must divulge into my situation to let you fully grasp this whole thing: My typical Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule consists of waking up around 7:20am, showering and heading to campus to drop Dallas off for class then sit around until my class at 9. I have no problem with this at all because it allows me to get to class on time and to just browse around the internet for an hour. But what happened this morning was that I forgot the parking sticker Dallas and I share in my car back at home so after dropping Dallas off I headed home to grab the sticker. All the while as I was driving, I was listening to my favorite morning show Bob & Tom. Now, it just so happened that a commercial came over the radio (as commercials tend to do) and normally I just ignore these ads for whatever but this morning I heard a peculiar one that caught my ear. The ad was for BlackBerrys on Verizon's phone network and I was intrigued by the ad as it began.

The ad itself was from the point of view of 'your' inbox and how it knew you get busy throughout the day and how it's hard to keep up with your e-mail throughout the day. Blah blah blah the ad goes on about how in the end a BlackBerry would allow you to check your e-mail all day and all that jazz, but the part that struck me was this: At one point the 'inbox' says something like, "I already have 100 e-mails ready for you to check--" and he's cut off by three tones that play quickly and it continues "Oh, make that 103. You wouldn't want me to put them in your Junk folder would you?"

Now that last part really had me awestruck. To me, a pretty tech-saavy guy, that said "If you don't start checking your e-mail, I'm going to put your valid e-mail in your Junk folder," which then had me thinking, "If my mom were listening to this, would she be afraid of her e-mail putting her good e-mails in her Spam folder just because it was so full?" and in that case, I bet she would. I'm betting $5 that she would call me and ask me about that, I think she'd be super worried. I highly doubt she'd go out and get a Blackberry as the ad suggests you do (inadvertently implying that a Blackberry will make sure your e-mail will be fine if you get one) but I'm pretty sure she'd double check her Spam box for a while making sure none of her 'good e-mail' got into it.

After the break, I'm going to rant. Just warning you.

I have to wonder how this shit gets past the people approving radio ads, because when it comes down to it, I know the people at Verizon know what they're doing and if I hate anything in marketing, it's fear tactics like this. Not to say that it isn't a good campaign or anything, because I fucking bet it'll sell a shit load of BlackBerrys to people who listen to the radio and are scared of missing e-mails like the ad suggests. The problem is, unlike my mom, not many people have a 'tech guy' at their immediate disposal. I mean, I know a lot of people who know a 'tech guy' or whatever, but even still most people won't e-mail/text/call that guy for a menial question like this. My guess is they will just go on throughout their day assuming this ad is telling some kind of truth and even if they do talk to a 'tech person,' they'll still double check just to be safe.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying one advertisement on the radio is going to instill fear in the masses, but I do feel that it will affect a few hundred people and at that point it's still successful and full of shit. I mean, now there will be a few hundred people double checking their Junk/Spam folders 'just in case' and giving grief to their IT department or tech guy over "making sure their e-mail gets to them" even though they are still checking their Junk/Spam boxes.

Again, I hate fear tactic ads like this, especially when it comes to technology. I'd like to thank Terminator for instilling major fear of technology in the masses, but it's small ads like this that allow people to distrust simple things like e-mail even more then they already do (which I hate to say is a lot more then you really think) and it's ads like this that make people like me (a 'tech guy') less credible when people ask for advice on technology. Damn Verizon...