Google Fight: Nokia & Apple Ads Trade Blows Over iPhone Price Cut

Bought that iPhone and now upset over the $200 price drop after it’s been out only 60 days? Nokia’s guessing plenty are and reaching out to them on Google via search ads. But Apple’s not sitting back in the face of the Nokia ad campaign. Apple has put out its own counter ads. The ad actually came from an Apple affiliate.

Nokia Marketing Team Reaches Out To Angry iPhone Users from TechCrunch covers how Nokia acted quickly on getting an AdWords ad up for a search on iphone price drop. The ad reads:

Sorry, Early Adopters
iPhone drops $200. Salvage yours
with free content at MOSH.

Soon after this, I noticed that Apple struck back with an ad for that search. Apple’s ad reads:

Congrats, Late Adopters
iPhone drops $200. Now you get all
the iPhone for 2/3 the price

You can see both ads showing up together in the screenshot above, though when I’ve looked again now, the Nokia ad is no longer showing.

I love it when big companies use marketing tactics like this, it just rocks!

On a personal note, I am a bit surprised that Apple dropped the price of the iPhone so quickly. I did expect a price drop but not such a huge one so soon. I expected Apple to announce around the holiday season that they are releasing new iPhones and they are available for the same price but with more space and features. I did not expect them to simply keep the same iPhone and just drop the price by $200 within 60 days.

I’ll get over it. I guess it is fair, Apple’s stock price dropped about $8 yesterday after the news, so I guess Apple and I can call it even. There is a lot of discussion of the price drop at Techmeme, if you are interested.

Postscript: The actually ad was posted by an Apple affiliate. The affiliate wrote about this adventure at his blog. Here is his open letter:

Dear Apple,

I am very sorry for the trouble that I have caused you. I didn’t mean to tarnish your reputation, and I hope that you can find it in your core to forgive me. All I wanted was a few laughs, and nothing more. I didn’t fully think through my idea, and had I given it a bit more thought, I definitely would have reconsidered. Hopefully this will fall under the “all publicity is good publicity” category, and you’ll sell a few more iPhones. Please accept this apology, and I hope that this helps to clear your name of any wrongdoing.

Sincerely,

Cory O’Brien DidntYouHear.com