So, if you’ve read more than a couple of my previous entries, you’ll know that I’m not a big fan of the Apple monster. I won’t go into my reasons now, (there are loads of people with similar blogs out there – it gets boring)

Given my antipathy towards Apple however, it was a source of some consternation recently when my wife wanted to upgrade her old Nokia and get herself an iPhone. I regard it as a significant triumph then that I was able to persuade her to get the latest <a href=" .”>HTC Desire
The Desire is the latest in a line of Google Android phones that have been challenging for the iPhone’s crown and it looks like one has finally made it (well until the iPhone 4 comes out later this year)

Now this post isn’t meant to be a Geek-off about Google vs Apple etc, it is to do with how marketing can affect someone’s satisfaction and loyalty towards something that they have already bought.

I kept checking with my wife that she was happy with her phone and she does really like it, but her enjoyment of the phone is tempered by the fact that other people don’t know how good it really is and so aren’t obviously envious of it. In her words “I wish their marketing was better so that people would admire it more”.

For her the value of marketing was just as much about making her phone an object of desire for other people as it was to make her want it in the first place. Whilst functionally she has a phone which commentators agree is better than the current generation of the iphone, the one function it cannot perform is to actually BE an iphone with all the status that entails.

HTC really do need to sort out their advertising so that it causes some down and dirty gadget lust amongst a wide population rather than just amongst the knowledgeable gadget geeks.

In this instance the considered opinion of the early adopter is less important than the admiration of the masses.

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