Most people hate the sound of ads, but whether it’s on the internet, billboards on the go or TV ads, it’s a very effective way to get information to the public. Smartphone manufacturers resort to all these ways to sell their latest models, but their effectiveness varies greatly. Google Pixel smartphones are approaching their fifth year of existence, and while sales are struggling, I do not think Google’s advertising dollars are pulling much.
Earlier this month, I took my first vacation since the pandemic started, and moved to a cabin in the mountains for a few nights. While my wife and I were watching the cable television of the cabin, I could not see the commercials that were playing. In the course of an hour, I take note of nearly half a dozen plays from an ad for Samsung’s Galaxy S21.
The short spot was one I did not agree with as the focus was on calling the phone ‘different’, when in fact it is a cheaper version of the Galaxy S20. And really, the Galaxy S series has just felt more and more similar every year for the past few generations, so this line doesn’t really make sense.
However, the ad sent a clear message to customers – how the device could be valuable to them. It focuses on the camera experience, citing 8K video support. While the feature itself is pretty worthless, Samsung then tells its potential customers that they can pull stationary frames out of the video without sacrificing the price. After that? Battery life, by simply saying “you will have battery all day.” The conclusion that “this is otherwise ”is again one I do not agree with, but it is a very effective advertisement to sell this device.
The addition to the winning formula is that Samsung is playing this ad very. According to the analysis firm Wave7 ResearchSamsung spent $ 3.5 million on this ad just between March 4 and March 11 in the United States.
On the Google side of things, the picture is not great. Google needs people to know about its phones, and the attempts to do so through ads like these are simply sad.
Same Golf7 According to the report, between January 31 and March 7, Google printed an ad of the Pixel 4a 5G only 4,000 times. Dollars spent on the plays are unknown, but 4,000 plays in two months is not much at all. Anecdotally, when we saw half a dozen plays of Samsung’s ad within an hour, the same channel only showed the Pixel ad once. The results also really speak for themselves. In a carrier survey, Golf7 Samsung has a 25% stake in most carriers, but at its best 3% for pixels.
The ad in question, seen below, boasts the ability to stream videos from the $ 499 phone, emphasizing the phone’s 5G support.
This “Smooth Stream” Pixel ad is, in my opinion, at least a very weak ad. It’s slow, somewhat boring and focuses on a point of the Pixel 4a 5G that most people honestly will not notice. 5G is definitely a good buzzword for marketing, and not one that Google should just ignore, but the Pixel has better points to give to consumers.
The 4a 5G is better at concentrating its advertising dollars on its affordable price or rather its leading camera, solid battery life and useful software features. Just last month, we highlighted a story from a Pixel user who was saved from hours of suffering, and possibly much worse, because the car crash detection feature kicked in on his Pixel. Google Assistant alone is a treasure trove of ad features with Call Screen for spam calls, hold me waiting in line, and more. Heck, Google has an even better version of Samsung’s photo feature. Instead of taking photos from 8K video frames, the Pixel can pull another version of the same photo, possibly avoiding a blurry image or a moving subject. Google Recorder would be another killer feature to advertise.
It’s a long way to go to say that Google is doing itself a disservice with the state of its current advertising. When I tweeted about this in early March, the idea of a carrier pushing the 5G angle quickly surfaced. A good theory, but the truth is that Google only stood behind this ad, with its Google Fi service plastered at the end, a proof of that.
“Smooth 5G Streams” is not going to sell phones. Useful features, good cameras and affordable prices will do the same. Google it everyone of those on the Pixel 4a, 4a 5G and its Pixel 5. Yet these phones struggle to succeed, and advertising dollars do not help much.
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