the smartphone wars

Unless You’re Apple, Stop Paying Celebrities to Use Your Phones

Taken (reluctantly) on an Android

Many tech blogs, starving for topical angles on the Oscars, have pointed out that although host Ellen DeGeneres was presumably supposed to spend the night using a Samsung smartphone – Samsung having spent millions of dollars to sponsor the awards ceremony – she apparently relapsed. True, her now-famous selfie was posted to Twitter with Android – presumably from a Samsung phone. But over the course of the evening, it looks like nearly half the tweets sent from DeGeneres’s account came from an iPhone.

This is a scandal in certain parts of techland. But smartphone-sponsor infidelity has become as predictable as the sunrise. When BlackBerry paid Alicia Keys to promote its sad line of touch-screen phones? She got busted using an iPhone just days later. When Microsoft paid Jessica Alba to promote Windows Phone? She got caught using an iPhone, too.

Moral of the story? Celebrities, like most other image-conscious rich people, will not be swayed from using their iPhones, no matter who pays whom how much to promote which off-brand imitator. Non-Apple companies: Acknowledging this simple fact will save you a little embarrassment and a lot of marketing dollars.

Stop Paying Celebrities to Use Your Phones