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Verizon and T-Mobile iPhone 4 public mind games get stranger

Verizon and T-Mobile iPhone 4 public mind games get stranger

Verizon is acting like it already has the iPhone 4, bragging on TV about its new iPad partnership with Apple while going out of its way not to mention the iPhone one way or the other in its ads for its own in-house smartphones. T-Mobile, on the other hand, is running ads which are either genius or a trainwreck, and not because they’re going to convince a single iPhone user to jump ship.

Instead, even as Verizon continues to confidently say nothing about the iPhone 4 in that “We’ve got this in the bag and we’re not gonna blow it by blabbing” kind of way, T-Mobile keeps coming up with ads which paint the iPhone 4 (by name and model number) as the perfect smartphone except for the fact that it only works with AT&T which sucks (again, mentioned by name).

Verizon’s strategy of quietly telegraphing its impending iPhone 4 launch is pretty straightforward: for those Verizon customers who want an iPhone 4 and have been debating whether to switch to AT&T to get their hands on one, Verizon’s iPad ads scream “The Verizon iPhone 4 is coming, we promise, see we’ve already got the partnership in place, so just hang in there a bit longer.” T-Mobile’s strategy is far stranger.

There’s precisely no one out there who was about to upgrade from an iPhone 3G to an iPhone 4 but sees the T-Mobile ad and says “Well, I was going to do that, but because T-Mobile claims AT&T is worse than my own experiences have told me it is, I guess I’ll give up my iPhone and buy whatever T-Mobile is selling.” And T-Mobile knows that. So who just who are these new pro-iPhone, anti-AT&T ads from T-Mobile supposed to be aimed at?

Apple itself, apparently. It’s almost as if T-Mobile’s CEO grabbed a megaphone and decided to stand outside Apple headquarters serenading Steve Jobs personally. These T-Mobile ads are going almost unheard of lengths to say positive things about a phone T-Mobile doesn’t even sell, and the only seed T-Mobile is planting in the public’s mind is this: “The iPhone would be perfect if T-Mobile offered it.” It’s almost as if T-Mobile wants you to think it already has the iPhone 4 in the bag too. But if that were the case it’s doubtful T-Mobile would already be so distinctly on the offensive, would it?

These public mind games that the carriers are now playing regarding the iPhone 4 are maddening. Between Verizon’s iPad ads, T-Mobile’s “we love the iPhone 4″ ads, and the occasional AT&T logo still appearing at the end of Apple’s own iPhone 4 ads, every major carrier in the U.S. is now pushing the iPhone 4 in one way or another except for Sprint – which is remarkable considering that none of them but AT&T are actually offering the iPhone 4 or have any publicly announced plans to do so.

[Thanks: http://www.beatweek.com]

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