LG has teamed up with Amazon Prime, offering 4 different smartphones at a discount price for customers who will see advertisements on their lock screen. Amazon has already teamed up with Motorola, Alcatel, and Nokia but LG is the first high quality phone company to be included in this program.
Known as Amazon’s Prime Exclusive Phone program, phones are usually discounted around $60 less than what they are usually. This does mean that the consumer would have to look at ads on their lock screen, but for good quality phones many people are viewing this program as a win.
Kastrenakes, Jacob. “Amazon Will Now Sell You High-End LG Phones for Less, If You’ll Put up with Ads.” The Verge, The Verge, 26 Oct. 2017, www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/10/26/16552414/lg-amazon-prime-phone-discount-ads-g6.
I believes that this is a really good business idea since almost everyone is a smartphone user and people are spending more and more time on looking at their phones. Companies used to put a lot of advertisements on TVs because at that time there are a huge amount of people who like to watch TV everyday. Amazon is really good at marketing because they know how to catch people’s eyes. Nobody will refuse a discount while getting the basically same products. Amazon let people get a phone with lower price seems to be a losing business. But it does save a huge amount of advertisement fee for Amazon which is absolutely higher than the total cost of those ‘advertisement’ phone. I think Amazon can put more discount sales on the phone screen because most of these users of ‘advertisement’ phone are the kind of people that are looking for discounts for everything. If Amazon put discount advertisement on phone screen where they always look at, I believe this will be more effective to earn back the advertisement costs.
To me this seems like a bit of a stretch. I understand why someone would want to get a discounted phone, but for the average person they really don’t need to do this, and it seems like just a bit over board into the whole AD world. It seems as though this is just too much advertising but if it saves someone a dollar here or there then sure. I found a similar article: https://www.fastcompany.com/3061933/amazons-ad-subsidized-phones-are-a-steal-if-your-brain-can-handle-them
I think this is something that has not been seen yet and it an extremely intelligent way for both Amazon to make money through advertising their products and consumers to get discounts. Everyone with a mobile device is checking their phone constantly and having advertisements appear on the lock screen would ensure that someone is going to see the product no matter what. By giving consumers a motive to participate in the program, Amazon is creating a win-win situation. Their consumers may have the inconvenience of an advertisement popping up every time they unlock their phone, but they are benefitting from it with discounts. As a college student, I am always looking for ways to save money and get sales on things so I would definitely be interested in participating in this type of program. I am curious to see if other large companies are going to try and move in this direction as well.
As someone who is majoring in Advertising and hopes to break into that field, I must admit that this is a genius idea. People use their phones so often and check them so often that having this Amazon phone would be like having a mobile billboard, displaying ads every time you turn it on and try to unlock your phone. This expands the reach of a brand’s advertisement in an astronomical way. The only concern I have though is that this discount-phone, exclusive to Amazon Prime members, may not be worth the advertisements for consumers. According to Fast Company, the price of the phone is ~$50 off the original price. Many people might not think this is enough of a discount to justify having to deal with advertisements every time they try to unlock their phone to check a text message.
https://www.fastcompany.com/3061933/amazons-ad-subsidized-phones-are-a-steal-if-your-brain-can-handle-them
I think that this is a pretty genius idea. For many people, saving money is super important, and watching advertisements to get a discount is an easy way to save money while making Amazon money. As a college student with a limited budget, I personally would love to be able to save money doing something as simple as watching advertisements, although I would most likely be annoyed with advertisements coming up on my lock screen, especially since I already get other notifications that I just think it would clutter my lock screen too much. However, I think this is a great idea and opportunity for both Amazon and the customer saving money on their cell phone.
I think that this is an extremely intriguing idea that will attract many customers in today’s technology market. People love finding good deals, especially when it comes to finding a good cell phone. Cell phone’s are a necessity for the majority of people, and this is a great way to take advantage of that fact. Ads can be a minimal aspect of this phone because in the big picture the consumer will be saving money, which is what he/she went into the process knowing. According to an article on the verge.com, there are two more smartphone being added to this deal. It states, “But it’s the first time that Amazon has subsidized non-Amazon devices with its special offers ad platform, and it underscores Amazon’s commitment to selling its services — even if it means showing up in potentially obtrusive ways on inexpensive or commodity hardware.” Not only will this help the advertising field, but this will also give a chance to those who are looking for a special offer to purchase the deal-breaking phone. Since the advertising field is decreasing in success due to the ability to skip ads and buy subscriptions for media sources in order to avoid ads, this is a win-win situation for Amazon and its users.
Source – https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2016/6/29/12054818/amazon-prime-special-offers-ads-subsidized-android-unlocked-smartphones
I think this a good idea business wise for Amazon to get their phone sales high because of how much Apple dominates the smart-phone field. These kind of moves by Amazon will at least give a chance to compete with the other bing smart-phone companies. Especially since the new iPhone X will be around $1000 which in my opinion is crazy. These phones are too expensive and it’s almost becoming not worth it, so this is a cool option. I avoid paying for premium accounts on Spotify even and watch adds just so I don’t have to pay. Not only are the new phones too expensive and we need better deals, but the price to fix these phones is ludicrous as well. In the article below, it shows how the new iPhone X will also be more twice as expensive to repair than other phones. I hope the Amazon phone is quality, so there are more options and then make the market more competitive. This might bring down prices of the premier phones like Samsung and Apple.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2017/10/27/iphone-x-screen-will-cost-almost-twice-much-repair-models/
What we see here by amazon is cool business idea. Honestly I do not think it will work out in their favor only because the majority of people that I know hate having adds pop up anywhere, for example, like youtube. The fact that you also only save 60 dollars, I do not think it is worth it at all. A good idea might be to also have an upgrade feature on the phone just in case if someone did decide to purchase the ad infested phone they could pay $60 and have all the adds permanently removed. All in all its a cool idea, but I think it should just remain an idea because it not something that I see taking off.
I think it’s a great idea to have such phones available to people. I think they could easily get away with making the phone not $60 less than market price but rather $60 only. The ads will certainly be targeted ads and over the course of the phones life will net the companies advertising much more than just $60 and amazon will be making huge profits regardless. Personally I would not opt to buy such a phone as I am already bombarded with ads as is. To me this is just a plot to make more money off of people by using a bait and switch style technique. Interesting post nonetheless.
This is an interesting tactic being used by Amazon. They are using a thing that most people hate (ads) and something that all people love (saving money) in an attempt to make money themselves. I personally would not take advantage of this money saving opportunity because I see enough ads on my phone that I don’t think I could handle any more, especially on my lock screen. For people who are not bothered by ads this could be something that they could take advantage of. Being able to save $60+ on a cell phone at the expense of ads on your home screen may not sound so bad for some customers.