This spot begins with a countryside helicopter shot, moves through a suburban area, and cuts to a downtown cityscape, with the logos of iPhone apps floatings around in the air around homes and businesses, and hovering over cars and a moving train, etc. Then the announcer says that there are over half-a-million apps for the iPhone, yadda yadda, and there’s practically no limit to what it can do, etc. Then they ask why anyone would want to limit the iPhone, cutting to video of a little boy playing with an iPhone.
Okay, so that’s a good ad, right? It sure looks nice and stuff, and the message is pretty good for Sprint’s unlimited data plan. But there’s definitely something about this spot that’s a bit questionable, and it really has more to do with the iPhone than with the commercial. You see, the spot ends with a little kid playing with a iPhone, and that raises a lot of issues. One of these issues is that the kid could accidentally charge up tons of money while playing with the iPhone, so leaving it out for the kid to find and play with could be disastrous. But if you have Sprint’s unlimited data plan, at least it shouldn’t gouge you in that way (with roaming, and going over your data limit, etc.); and showing the little boy with the iPhone makes this suggestion, which may be entirely accidental, by the way: they may have simply wanted to end the spot on a cute kid playing with the iPhone.
But they may also have ended with showing the kid playing with the iPhone to show the childlike fascination he has for the iPhone, and that we all had as kids for cool gadgets, and to indicate that in getting an unlimited data plan, we can all get back that childlike fascination too, because the iPhone’s potential is truly unleashed and unlimited for all iPhone users with such a plan, bringing back that sense of wonder and awe we all had as kids for neat-o things. But getting back to the boy playing with it, this can also be seen as all the video game charges kids can make during an unsupervised game on the iPhone (or any smartphone, I think), and that’s scary, and also something which the Sprint unlimited data plan would not help you with; in fact, it may make it even more likely to happen. But that’s not Sprint’s fault, unless they own video game companies that target children in this way to gouge parents for more money. And I don’t think they do own any of those reprehensible companies.
Okay, so here’s another issue with the child, and it’s an even bigger issue for me. When I see a kid playing with an iPhone by himself, I think more of child neglect than childlike wonder at amazing gadgets (although I remember being a little boy fascinated with gadgets, and I’d love to be a little boy again to play with an iPhone!). Apparently lots of parents are just handing their kids their iPhones to keep the kids busy so they can ignore them. That’s how the kids end up charging thousands of dollars’ worth of “free” video game stuff, like that virtual aquarium game price gouging scheme targeting children that was exposed on The Daily Show: because they’re unsupervised. But this is a far smaller issue than a real problem developing in our society today: adults are becoming so involved with playing with their iPhones all the time that they’re completely shutting everyone else out. Families are being driven apart with parents spending all their time on the smartphones and completely ignoring their children and spouses. People go on dates nowadays where both parties just sit at restaurant tables and play with their smartphones while absolutely ignoring each other. This habit is getting to the point where people are so engrossed in using these little gadgets that they’re literally walking into traffic and getting killed. And it’s pushing people apart more than it’s bringing them together.
So when I see a kid playing with an iPhone in an ad that says they don’t know why anyone would want to limit the iPhone, and then they offer unlimited data plans for such phones, I just think about how this kid will now be completely ignored by his parents from now on because of this phone and this unlimited data plan. And then it makes me think of those DirecTV ads where they show all the bad things that can result from something, and I see in my head this whole montage of this kid becoming a juvenile delinquent, getting arrested, acting out more and more, all in an attempt to get noticed by his parents, and eventually ending up in jail on murder charges. (And I hear that DirecTV ad announcer’s voice saying: “When you get a Sprint unlimited data plan for the iPhone, your children get neglected. When your children get neglected…”)
So I think this is a good ad for the product, but that you can read a lot of bad things into it. It might actually be fun and a public service as well for Sprint to run an ad about their unlimited data plan for the iPhone that says you can do anything you want on the iPhone now with this unlimited data plan, and that it’s so great, people might forget to interact with their friends and family, so then they remind people to talk to and acknowledge the people they care about, and not to use the phone all the time, even though now they can.
Here’s the unlimited ad:
