I'm not a fan of the iPhone, or iPad come to that (more later). But it wasn't until yesterday evening at the CIPR that I learned quite how manic some marketers have become. The following conversation won't be verbatim as I wasn't party to it, but it's a good representation of the story as I heard it last night from those who are having these conversations too regularly:
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Marketer: We need an iPhone app?
Mobile marketing expert: Righteo. Why's that?
Marketer: Because they're really cool and cool's where it's at for our target demographic.
Mobile marketing expert: Cool, yes, and who's the target?
Marketer: Teenagers.
Mobile marketing expert: Do you know that iPhone penetration is just 4% in the UK, and that's only 0.5% amongst UK teenagers?
Marketer: Oh :-(
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The bring all sorts of people together under one roof for a beer and a chat about specific interesting issues. On conducting a quick straw poll of the super collection of people last night, we had roughly an equal split of Blackberrys, iPhones, Android (mostly HTC) and 'other', making for an unrepresentatively high proportion of smartphones. Read more