New Pomegranate Phone Costs Government 300k
Ok so I have to admit, I was momentarily taken in by this superbly awesome piece of technology. The problem is…it doesn’t exist, which you may have figured out at this point.
The Pomegranate Phone is an experiment in viral marketing launched by the government of Nova Scotia on October 1st – 300k worth of an experiment, to be exact.
Touting itself as the ultimate all-in-one gadget offering a mobile phone, mp3 player, gps system, internet, global voice translator, camera, video player, movie projector, coffee brewer, razor and harmonica in one, plus accessories like t-shirts, docks and speakers, this “pombomb” as many in the social media sphere are calling it, was an attempt to spread the word about Nova Scotia’s Come To Life tourism campaign.
There have been debates about the effectiveness of the campaign, with several people labeling it a “pombbomb” on Twitter and calling it a viral marketing failure.
However, according to a blogger at Brightwhite, the creator of this campaign, Stacy Jones-Oxner, the site got over 21k visitors in its first 4 days of existence, the majority of which made it to the REAL target, the Nova Scotia tourism site.
However, the links to the site are hidden well, and unless you just happen to click on the correct one, you won’t get there. There are those of us who see something like that and try everything, then there’s the average user who might try out a couple things and move on. But that’s just my humble opinion.
I think people will definitely forward this to friends, family and co-workers, but I don’t think the majority of those people will click over to the main Nova Scotia site.
Now, I do have to give props for a clever idea, I just think the main goal is too hidden, and what does the phone have to do with Nova Scotia? Is it saying they like coffee, shaving and gadgets, and if you do too, come on over? Maybe if it its meaning, message and links were a more obvious and a less hidden…who knows.
For now, I’ll leave you with pictures and this thought: someone make that phone for reals, stat!
As a regular phone:
As a coffee brewer:
As a global voice translator:
As a shaver:
As a harmonica:
As a home movie projector:
With accessories:
Related posts:
