How'd they do that?

[eric_darling]

http://www.dstrict.com/z107/index.html

Nice! Not sure it sells phones or whatever... But it's cool. Definitely cool. (you gotta allow popups from dstrict.com for it to work, BTW)

[Corey]

Killer presentation... :yes

[Desmond]

That's really cool. not sure i love the split-screen flash, but it's different, definitely caught my attention.

[AGRO]

That is just nice!!! I have to find out how they did that!!!

[AGRO]

Looks like it was done with asp.....hummmmmmm

[Corey]

No it would be client side. So either javascript or DHTML. If I had to bet I'd bet DHTML. It's easy enough to check out the source sode, DHTML is generally fully visible in the browser. It's not that hard to do a design like this, I did one many years ago for a flower shop which was very similar in fact. The challenge at the time was Netscape. In this case this presentation doesn't work in Firefox so it's more or less not functional in the strictest sense of the term, or more accurately, their offer is only reaching IE people and people who have Firefox set to allow pop-ups (the minorty).

Anyhow it's another case of very nice creative design which probably misses the mark in terms of converting sales. At the end of the day esoteric marketing is not effective except in very, very specific cases. In the case of a phone service I have zero doubt they could have reaped more sales with a much less creative campaign. I would say that less than 1% of designers have any clue about selling at all so that's probably par for the course though. I believe the underlying strategy was to "be different" and "stand apart from everyone else" but that's a super risky way to approach people in terms of asking them to spend money on a new product. It looks good on paper but when people buy phones they are looking for things like reliability and service, not creative packaging. :)

That being said, aesthetically it's one of the best online ads I've seen. :yes

[AGRO]

Ya know, I was thinking javascript but typed asp because that is what I have been doing all day. I feel dumb. :huh

I do agree with you Corey. I think when the average viewer looks at this, they do not know what to think or what the heck is going on. It seems to me that there target market is computer savy. I showed my father inlaw and he was confused as heck. He did not like it at all. Bottom line is sales. I also think they missed it.

I have to give them a A for creativity.

[Corey]

I agree. Your father-in-law's reacion is interesting. I think that's the exact same reaction almost all people will have to it in terms of "what is the value proposition here?"

[Derek]

I love the ad .. very well done!

I think this ad has nothing to do with sales. I think they made it coz they could. It seems typical of 3G.
Bottom line is, if the phone is worth anything the sales will come from the shops pushing it and word of mouth. Most people won't even get to see this ad.
There's not a vast range of phones currently compatible with 3G. Phones that are, the people on 3G already know about them, so any new ones coming up will be considered by those people anyway ... mainly at upgrade time and coz it's 'cool' to have the latest phone with all the gizmo's and gadgets - if its worth anything, that is.