Verizon Wireless Gets Going On BREW Agenda
Wireless Week
September 23, 2002
news@2 direct
Aiming to make a big splash with young consumers and business users alike, Verizon Wireless today launches Get It Now, a 3G applications service targeted at the easily bored but not-so-easily amused.
Featuring billboards, events and television ads that urge customers to “Get Games, Get Tones, Get Going,” the Verizon Wireless campaign is billed as the biggest since the massive branding effort that accompanied the carrier’s formation two years ago. Television commercials for the service point out the ''benefits of killing time and saving time,'' says Bill Stone, vice president of marketing for Verizon Wireless. Aimed at the young-adult crowd, the television ads show young people -- bored at the dentist and bored in what appears to be detention -- clearly in need of some new form of amusement.
''We see this as the next step in the evolution,'' says Bill Stone, vice president of marketing for Verizon Wireless. ''A lot of marketing energy is being expended. We're going to see a very significant uptake over the holidays.''
Filling the void created by boredom, Verizon is offering the downloadable apps on its CDMA2000 using a new Get It Now phone -- the $199 color screen Motorola T720. The phone also is compatible with the carrier's next-generation Express Network for high-speed data downloads.
Get It Now is comprised of several components -- Get Games, Get Going, Get Pix, Get Tones, Get Mail and Get Fun -- enabling subscribers to download applications from ringtones and games to expense reports and airport schedules over the air using Qualcomm's BREW technology. The initial package of 20 to 30 applications is rich in games, which Verizon believes consumers want, from games makers such as Jamdat Mobile, Rocket Mobile and Wireless Knowledge. Customers can demo the games for free, and purchase them by number of plays or subscription. Business productivity and entertainment applications also are part of the Get It Now agenda.
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