Fairphone marketing is like Apple's one :(!

I was referring to the hype that is supposed to build up by the silence before the big reveal. That would be now and the months before.

Yes, very much so. The 2018 campaign had been as successful as it could possibly get – they hit the maximum amount they had asked for exactly one day before the campaign ended. This makes me wonder why they opted to go for a different route this time. No criticism from my side, just curious. There must be some compelling reason.

No, I don’t. I just point to the fact that absence of communication allows for more interpretations than anticipation of something great.

By the way, reluctance to announce and continuous communication is by no means mutually exclusive. No public commitment to certain specs, date of availability, or any aspect that has not been decided on internally can perfectly coexist with quite a degree of openness on plans and events as they happen. This is particularly true if the success of your project involves some sort of community.

To me there seems to be one obvious reason:
If you have to make people literally buy into an idea, you have to give them as much information as possible, so they know what they will be spending their money on.
If you develop a product, that will be available on presentation, you can take another route and try to hit the market with the utmost possible impact.
And - just my reasoning again -, they have learnt a lot from FP1 and FP2 and they always seem to have learned their lessons well. Therefore the FP3 is stronger, internally better connected with screws and with a larger battery.
And the press coverage has proved, that the press conference has worked in transporting the message.

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It’s interesting how nowadays political correctness is the only ethical consideration to be considered. Have people camping for days out of a store and then being welcomed as “heroes” by singing and dancing employees before shelling $1K for the next gadget ? All good, as long as it’s political correct.

Oh, come on now …
At least in my world, everyone is free to spend 1,000 USD on a gadget and feel like a hero.
Feel like dancing, why not?
What in the scene you described is to be attributed as bad and - even more important - has to do with the marketing-event we started this discussion off on?

You don’t like Apple fandom and the kind of cult, that is made of it? Neither do I!
Is it about the obscene amount of money and the global injustice of how the money is distributed among countries and people?
Happy, to agree on that.
And what has it got to do with presenting a product and a message of sustainability at a press-conference without splitting the curtain beforehand?
Please watch the video from the press conference and you will realize, that the way of marketing might be alike, but the message is completely different.

That’s it from my point of view; that’s the relevant question: “What do you advertise?”

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USD or USA is irrelevant in the context of FP3.

Lets say 1000 EUR. I find that a lot for a device, but for middle incomes in the target group it realistically is a dent in their budget and that’s it.

If you look at it from a different angle you get to pay say 450 EUR for a device which lasts say 4 years. You pay therefore less than 10 EUR a month for the device (~9.4 to be precise). However you also got the liberty and perhaps need to buy replacement modules. You’ll also need a SIM card plus a data plan but nowadays these aren’t as expensive anymore as in the past.

So the question becomes can you afford to spend 10 EUR a month, or have you saved some money to buy a phone for less than 500 EUR?

Many poor people won’t be able to. But let’s be realistic, the poor people aren’t busy with sustainability (though they may buy a second hand smartphone which is quite frankly smart in their situation provided it works well, is reputable, etc). They’re the people who go to Primark cause they can’t afford more expensive brands. They’re not interesting for Fairphone. It is the middle and higher incomes which are. Keep ind mind it is a caricature I draw here though.

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You know, that I was replying to @Soprano and the picture he/she/… painted?

While I - in a way - completely agree with you. This at least is the way most poor people argue and see the situation.
On the other hand, it might be considered a question of priorities and patience.
A 500,- Euro smartphone aside (as it is always luxury and nearly never needed), the question is, what you spend your money on.
E.g. fashion. If you want stylish stuff and have a new outfit every other month, you have to buy cheap of course. If you don’t care to keep your clothes for longer and even stitch a hole in the socks or the shirt, you might be able to spend more on higer and longer lasting quality (not the same shiny stuff on a higher price level of course).

That’s a caricature as well of course. There are lots of greys between the white and black and many factors beyond the control of people that are relevant as well.

Ah, I see. I didn’t reread that post. I don’t understand the post anyway, to be honest.

What you say I agree with for middle class and high class (in NL/BE/DE/UK/FR, I don’t know about ES/IT/PT/GR, and I looked up (see source) and it seems true for IS/FI/NK/DK/SE).

For poor people the most sustainable thing to do is a second hand smartphone. iPhones have been filling that market for ages. These second hand get better every year. But, you see, with batteries not being user replaceable…

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I’m sure you can see the relationship between the kind of cult you’re mentioning and the marketing Apple has always adopted in the last years.

No, not with the art of marketing as such, but with the content and message they did market.
Or do you consider to stay away from paper advertisements and billboards because some company (like Apple, truefruits, Benetton etc.) are using those tools for creating hypes or posting sexist or violent ads?
All tools, that can be useful can be used in a harmful way as well.
A pen can be used to transfer important thougts to paper as well as hate speech and it can even be used for bodily injury when poking eyes.

And Apple for sure was not the only one using this marketing technic. It is used for presenting cars etc. all the time. Where are all those other cults stemming from that marketing?

Once more: Do not confuse the tool with the message, the marketing technic with the thing that is marketed. If you have watched the video from the press conference, in what way did it remind you of Apple? If you read the reviews and press reports of this press conference, in what way do they remind you of Apple?
Name me just one point only and I will reconsider.

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Perfectly agree. Indeed, I’m not arguing against the “art of marketing” (where did you infer that?), neither I’m comparing FP marketing with Apple. I’m discussing your sentence I quoted before, about Apple being successful and politically correct, please stick to it and don’t go off on a tangent.
Apple may be politically correct (besides, according to which politics and ethics ? You know politically correctness changes from country to country) but still markets a cultist idea of glorification for their pieces of plastic, something as despicable in our society as your preferred political incorrectness.
What the OP means is “we don’t want to be like them”. In that sentiment you’ll find the best explanation to my criticism.

Just one last posting by me in this thread, as we are really getting off-topic and making it a dialogue. And that’s not the sense of this forum.

Wow, just wow.
All my reasoning was - from the very beginning - about the marketing technic, never about the message in itself.
And then you take one sentence in a long discussion and try to make an argument of it, twisting all my reasoning and the context.
What was it, in this sentence that triggered you?
I guess it was the term “politcal correct”, right?
Admittedly I was hesitant to use this phrase, but I will stick to it. What I am not gonna stick to is your interpretation of what I meant by this term. I agree of course, that it’s ambiguous and that it changes with time and countries. So much more reason to not just insinuate a certain meaning, but to maybe ask for clarification.

And to answer your question:

It was the only conclusion, as this was the topic and content of the whole previous discussion.
It was not about creating a cult, it was about not informing the community beforehand and being seclusive with regard to the new phone. The OP was not about “we want to be different”, it was about: “I want to be informed”. Please reread it.

Final point:
Do you really think, that the Apple cult is caused by their kind of marketing for the last years?
That kind of “religion” started way before the sold phones.
In my opinion it originates from the Macintosh and especially the MacOS and it’s graphic user interface with mouse support.
Of course they are using their status for selling their stuff. (And that’s just an observeration, no appraisal!)

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