Remember the old days when every phone that you owned had the alphabet listed from A to Z above each of the numbers you used for dialing? That’s so yesterday. My smartphone has a QWERTY keyboard. In other words, every letter has its own button. That’s a great feature until you’re driving down the highway and see a billboard that says something like this:
"Buy our superior product. Call 1-800-URSTUCK."
What do you do when you own a Blackjack like me? You don’t respond to the ad because it’s impossible to dial the phone number.
I was amazed today on my drive home from the beach at how many billboards and vehicles are plastered with telephone numbers that I can’t call. Even though my smartphone is too dumb to call their telephone numbers, I could have used it to surf their websites. Only I couldn’t do that either because a number of those same ads didn’t include a web address.
When you have a chance, it might be a good idea to make sure your audience can respond to your message.
Ahh…but if you had a Treo (which also has a QWERTY kb) you could call up the phone keypad on your screen and see the corresponding numbers. Long live the Treo!! :)
Happy new year!
Mark
P.S. I still agree with your billboard/marketing observations and advice. Good thoughts. :)
and it’s not only billboards. how many delivery trucks or landscape businesses display phone numbers? they would be better off just putting the name of the business (providing it’s memorable) and letting people use the power of Google (or the yellow pages) to find contact information. people cannot call or write down numbers when whizzing past at 50 mph.
My mom bought my daughter an address book for Christmas. She even put all the family numbers in it, etc. We all just looked at each other and chuckled. Then we gave her a digital camera and she asked us what kind of film to buy. So we had her open the chip. She didn’t get it.
Makes you wonder how things are going to change when that generation retires and there is a whole new marketing strategy based on new minds?
Who dials phone numbers anymore without first surfing a company’s site? Hard to do that driving a car … the the URL better be memorable. But I do see your point. The world is ever changing. Thanks for the insight.
This drives me absolutely crazy; I thought that I was the only one that thought this was a problem. All of our LifeChurch.tv campuses end w/ – - – Life. I just have to remember the 5433 part. :-)
Ah, yes. Just one of many reasons why I love my iPhone…
…it has both.
http://i10.tinypic.com/6o13ryq.jpg
I don’t have a blackjack to try this out on, but you can see if this works. http://www.i607.org/wiki/doku.php?id=alpha-numeric_dialing
My advice-get a Blackberry or Treo!!
I have a Blackberry with a QWERTY keyboard. When I have to dial numbers with letters in them I literally dial the letters. I press the alt key to enter letters instead of numbers. Press send, viola, the correct numbers are dialed. Have you tried that on your blackjack?
AMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN!! So simple, yet so profound!
My wife always laughs at me when I borrow her basic phone in the car to make a call because my “Smartphone” is too hard to use. Maybe someday they’ll make a billboard that just beams it’s number to my phone.
I have the same phone, same problem. I was going to call COMCAST 1-800-com-cast to express some dissatisfaction with them .. now I need to make two calls.
no problem on an iphone.
http://common.ziffdavisinternet.com/util_get_image/16/0,,i=164116&sz=1,00.jpg
Well your point is relevant only if you plan on actually calling the number the moment you pass the billboard (which is usually not the case).
While this makes for an interesting post, the reality is the billboard actually works!! You DID remember the number (and that is the point)!! Oh yeah, if you look at your office phone or home phone, AMAZINGLY you can dial the number!!
And most people have regular cell phones where the “old way” still applies. Come on Tony, I would expect more thought on this post from a guy with “Chief” in his title.