Gizmodo
The Pitch "How many phones does one man need?" the narrator asks as the camera pans across a line of halter-topped lovelies chatting on their mobiles. The women shimmy in hypnotic slo-mo, with the line ending at a Grace Jones look-alike (circa Conan the Destroyer). And then—Jimmy! A wannabe Hefner in a monogrammed bathrobe, Jimmy's smiling ear-to-ear—not because Grace is rubbing her Spandex-clad naughty bits against his hip, but rather because he has T-Mobile's HotSpot @Home service. Having permanently banished his landline, Jimmy can now dedicate himself full-time to sybaritic pleasures; in another upcoming spot, for example, he hosts a pool party that's wall-to-wall with adoring ladies. Will this putty-jawed lothario lead T-Mobile to the wireless promised land, or does the tongue-in-cheek approach fall flat?
Rip-Off Of Those Bud Light commercials in which schlubby white guys end up dancing in hip-hop videos or hanging by an iced-out rapper's pool. T-Mobile's plotline is different, but the underlying message is the same (as well as the ultimate advertising classic): our product will make you much cooler than you are. Also worth noting that Jimmy is a spitting image of a younger Will Ferrell—say, from his A Night at the Roxbury days. Having formerly employed Catherine Zeta-Jones as a spokesmodel, perhaps T-Mobile came to the conclusion that it's far cheaper and equally effective to simply go the celeb-impersonator route.
The Spin The humor here is pitched toward the demographic that figures to adopt HotSpot @Home in the early going: post-collegiate consumers who are finally paying their own phone bills, and realize that landlines are doomed. These folks have probably already made the switch to VoIP, but even that's too expensive and redundant; they want to use a cell only, but minute caps kill them (even with those nifty Fave 5s and Alltel Circles). Expect future "Jimmy's House" ads to tout the fact that HotSpot @Home users can also hop on Starbucks' Wi-Fi network, and thus take advantage of unlimited calling while getting hopped up on overpriced caffeine.
Counterspin Really poor execution on the campaign's online component. The commercial advises interested parties to visit TheOnlyPhoneYouNeed.com, which features perhaps the most unilluminating Flash demo in recorded history. Why, for example, doesn't the demo answer the most obvious questions a halfway tech-savvy consumer will have: do I need to use T-Mobile's router, or can I keep my old one? And what's the service's deal with text messaging (i.e. are they still gonna charge you extra for texting, even when using your home Wi-Fi network)? Also, getting back to the television ad, will Jimmy start to grate after his second or third appearance? When jokey pitchmen work, they work great (see: the Geico Caveman); when they fail, nothing is more irritating.
Takeaway T-Mobile is targeting exactly the right demographic, and there's no question that wireless service providers should be making a more aggressive play to dinosaur landlines. But as our own Wilson Rothman recently noted, T-Mobile is debuting HotSpot @Home with a pretty abysmal lineup of handsets—the Nokia 6086 and the Samsung t409 aren't anything to write home about, and that's putting it mildly. Yes, switching to the HotSpot @Home service will save your average VoIP user a good $20-$30 per month. But is that enough savings to get the masses to cancel their Vonage and triple play packages? Perhaps if more phones were on offer, or T-Mobile offered one with high-speed data. For the moment, though, this makes the most sense for families that are still stuck in the copper-wire morass; they can get five lines for $19.99.
Hype-O-Meter 6 (out of 10). Okay, maybe I should grade this a bit lower, given that I didn't find Jimmy's mugging particularly amusing. But, hey, T&A—don't get nearly enough of that in American gadget ads. The rest of the world, though, is a different story—which is why you can expect Hype Sheet to be covering some foreign ads in the very, very near future.
Brendan I. Koerner is a contributing editor at Wired and a columnist for both The New York Times and Slate. His Hype Sheet column appears every Thursday on Gizmodo.
Comments
The first mobile phone to have Wi-Fi? What about the iPhone? I think T-Mobile has really lost it ...
Only problem I see is there's another guy in there with him.
I take that back. Only problem I see is that there's guys in there.
Meh, its certainly no Japanese windows 3.1 commercial...
sybaritic? Sounds to me like somebody got a word-a-day calendar! :)
If your house is on fire, and you call 911 from a land line, you'll have firefighters there in three minuts (I got lucky, they were nearby, and were there in thirty seconds).
If your house is on fire, and you call 911 from a cell phone, you'll be *on hold* for three minutes. When the firefighters get the word, there's a *strong* chance they'll be in the right district to come to your house. If so, they'll be at your house in three more minutes.
You can get "lifeline" service for $6 a month. Beyond real 911 access, it lets you call when the cell signal's bad or your battery's dead, and it gives you a number to put in web forms for companies you don't trust with your T-Mobile(tm) HotSpot(sm) @(r)Home(c) number.
@CaseyG: Gen-Y trendoids don't acknowledge the need for such mundane nonelectronic entities as the fire department. Problem solved.
I got yer jimmy...
Well first of all. I pay close to $120 for 2 phones and a data plan. If they gave me the same price for HotSpot @ home and the data plan without having to be in a hotspot enabled area I would definetly pay for it.
Now so far i havent gone over my minutes. When HS comes back into session im probably going to be going over my minutes like crazy. So jeah they'll probably going to be adding a Blackberry, and the new Dash on the HotSpot @ home list seeing as how popular the old Dash did with MyFaves and the Blackberry phones have always been popular.
I say that was probably one of the smartest marketing schemes done thus far this year.
If they do with this like they did with MyFaves then dam they're going to have a good pony that will probably lead them to have one of the BEST NETWORKS IN THE UNITED STATES. Yes i said it. Lets see T-Mobile is popular for texting, internet, and of course their minutes.
Now what they should do is come out with a hybrid router that serves as a hotspot router, reg. modem, and of course a SERVICE TOWER.
Imagine the possiblities. Aww i dont have hotspot but i have perfect reception within a 200 feet radius of your house. Dam this owns. Now if one person every 200 feet has a T-Mobile phone there will be very few spots that you wont be covered by T-Mobile.
Probably the smartest thing they've done.
If i was working for T-Mobile i would get a promotion for that idea.
And i can almost bet money that they're going to go in a similar direction.
I have one of these phones, got it for free at the promotion they had last week... The wi-fi calling is kind of laggy, but it works on any wi-fi network you have permission to connect to. The standard GSM works fine for me, but I live in a city so I get good service from any provider wherever I am. The only thing wi-fi adds is that it kills the battery on the phone faster. I already don't have a landline, but if I were to live somewhere where I didn't have cell service, then this would be a good deal...
"Rip-Off Of Those Bud Light commercials"
That's because the person behind the ads at Publicis West used to work on the Bud Light account. Apparently he's a bit thin in the originality department. This is what happens when the CEO ignores his marketing department and lets the agency control the branding.
As to your obvious question, no, you do not have to purchase a T-Mobile router for this service. However, T-Mobile claims that their routers help save batter life on your phone by not requiring the phone to consistently search for the router.
What I personally don't like about their ads is that they never specifically say calls placed on open wi-fi networks are free. They only say calls placed from T-Mobile Hot Spot locations are. I imagine this is for simplicity's sake, but I'm choosing to wait until bills come out before I believe calls placed on open wi-fi networks are unlimited.
@CaseyG: T-Mobile requires you to register an e911 address in their billing system to use this service, similar to how Vonage and other VoIP phone companies work.
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