Can you hear me now? Good!

Media Meditation #8!

The “Verizon Guy” is the face or “symbol” of Verizon Wireless and is recognized by consumers all over the country. He was first introduced in 2002, and according to an article written by Theresa Howard in USA Today, “he has helped, Verizon gain market share and reduce customer turnover.[…] The simple ‘can you hear me now?’ question, all too familiar to cell phone users, helped move network reliability up the ranks as a key purchase consideration for wireless users at the time when other companies were shouting about minutes and prices.” Verizon’s brilliant marketing campaign proved to work for the company. However, in today’s society consumers are constantly processing advertisements and media messages, after a while they get bored of the same repetitive images. According to Media and Society written by David Croteau and William Hoyness, “Our attention is on what is being bought and sold, and competition for that attention is hard to attract leads to a continual search for new ways to reach consumers” (64). Finding a new way to reach consumers is exactly what Verizon did. Verizon embarked on a very creative experiential marketing campaign called “Verizon Surprises.” Experiential Marketing is essentially gorilla marketing. It is any type of marketing that is live and non traditional. The first and most important step of experiential marketing is to get the attention of the people around you, and then keep it. Some ways to achieve this is through, street teams, events, face-to-face connections, word of mouth, trade shows, using celebrities, and free samples to name a few techniques. Experiential marketing is a great form of marketing, because it is non- traditional it allows you to think out of the box and really get creative. Verizon sent the “Verizon Guy” and the network to various locations to follow Verizon customers around while they were on their phone. They used “group dynamics” to prove to their customers they would always be there when they needed them. Almost every customer was in “denial” about the situation at first, but then accepted this “personal shift.” They were in a real life advertisement! Every customer and bystander was left with an impression due to these real life “testimonials.” The people involved didn’t feel as if they were being marketed towards, which is why it proved to be so effective. Media and Society says it best, “Despite the diversity of advertising messages and their frequent use of irony and humor, there is an underlying commonality to almost all advertisements: They are fundamentally about selling”(186).

An example of a surprise!