Following this week’s announcement that the iPhone is finally coming to Verizon, a new report claims that the largest wireless provider in the U.S. plans to advertise Apple’s handset heavily over competing Android phones.
Analyst Shaw Wu with Kaufman Bros. cited checks with industry sources in a new note to investors issued on Wednesday, in which he said Verizon will put its “marketing muscle” behind the iPhone. The advertisements are expected to come at the expense of competing smartphones that run the Google Android mobile operating system.
“On its homepage, [Verizon] is already highlighting the iPhone 4 and iPad as flagship products with not much else in sight (save for a Jabra Bluetooth Headset),” Wu wrote.
When Verizon began selling the iPad late last year, the company ran an aggressive ad campaign on TV touting the device’s availability. AT&T, on the other hand, had no TV commercials devoted solely to the iPad.
When the iPhone was not on Verizon, the carrier ran a number of campaigns that instead pushed Android as part of the company’s “Droid” lineup, including one commercial that portrayed the iPhone as feminine. The series of commercials said that what the iPhone couldn’t do, “Droid Does.”
Read more here…
