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Sep. 6, 2007 at 9:30am Eastern by Barry Schwartz
Google Fight: Nokia & Apple Ads Trade Blows Over iPhone Price Cut
Bought that iPhone and now upset over the $200 price drop after it's been out only 60 days? Nokia's guessing plenty are and reaching out to them on Google via search ads. But Apple's not sitting back in the face of the Nokia ad campaign. Apple has put out its own counter ads. The ad actually came from an Apple affiliate.
Nokia Marketing Team Reaches Out To Angry iPhone Users from TechCrunch covers how Nokia acted quickly on getting an AdWords ad up for a search on iphone price drop. The ad reads:
Sorry, Early Adopters
iPhone drops $200. Salvage yours
with free content at MOSH.
Soon after this, I noticed that Apple struck back with an ad for that search. Apple's ad reads:
Congrats, Late Adopters
iPhone drops $200. Now you get all
the iPhone for 2/3 the price
You can see both ads showing up together in the screenshot above, though when I've looked again now, the Nokia ad is no longer showing.
I love it when big companies use marketing tactics like this, it just rocks!
On a personal note, I am a bit surprised that Apple dropped the price of the iPhone so quickly. I did expect a price drop but not such a huge one so soon. I expected Apple to announce around the holiday season that they are releasing new iPhones and they are available for the same price but with more space and features. I did not expect them to simply keep the same iPhone and just drop the price by $200 within 60 days.
I'll get over it. I guess it is fair, Apple's stock price dropped about $8 yesterday after the news, so I guess Apple and I can call it even. There is a lot of discussion of the price drop at Techmeme, if you are interested.
Postscript: The actually ad was posted by an Apple affiliate. The affiliate wrote about this adventure at his blog. Here is his open letter:
Dear Apple,I am very sorry for the trouble that I have caused you. I didn’t mean to tarnish your reputation, and I hope that you can find it in your core to forgive me. All I wanted was a few laughs, and nothing more. I didn’t fully think through my idea, and had I given it a bit more thought, I definitely would have reconsidered. Hopefully this will fall under the “all publicity is good publicity” category, and you’ll sell a few more iPhones. Please accept this apology, and I hope that this helps to clear your name of any wrongdoing.
Sincerely,
Cory O’Brien
DidntYouHear.com
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By Barry Schwartz
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Reader Comments
I am a sucker. I should have waited. I didn't.
But you so want an iPhone... Stop whining about other people having it and putting them down. It is like you are a school boy that picks on girls that they like.
Seriously, just buy yourself an iPhone already! ;-)
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I wish a carrier picked up the iPhone in Canada, but our data plans really don't support the kind of bandwidth it needs. Folks up here are buying them just for the novelty of it, plus the other stuff that comes with it - not to use it as a phone.
Don't pick on Barry for buying it early, after all if it wasn't for early adopters, great gadgets would be scrapped entirely never to see daylight again.
That ad isn't actually from Apple, it's an Apple affiliate through CJ.com. That's the "fun" part of having affiliates, you never know how they'll represent your brand!
Well, I tried AMEX again and this time they gave me $200 back!
More details at my personal blog.
I no longer feel taken.
And now an additional $100. So who is the sucker now?
I got a 8GB iPhone for $300!
Barry, I agree, I was watching Steve's prezo and I was really surprised at the size and timing of the price cut. I think it was a mistake; the iPhone is a premium product, and the lower price won't affect demand that much.
You are such an Apple fanboy, Barry. They could be giving those phones away free now, and you'd be saying, well, it was worth $600 to have it for the first 60 days ahead of everyone else.
Still, if they made it 3G, I might go over to the dark side. And if they had an actual keyboard. Wait, I have a phone that has both of those things :)