When a company claims its product is *the* best, is it?
Here’s a video that launched last month, specifying Verizon Wireless now offers “the most advanced 4G network in the world.”
From one wireless industry site:
Verizon claims their network is the fastest at 5-12 Mbps, followed by WiMAX at 3-6 Mbps, and HSPA+ at 1-7 Mbps.
No details are given on where these speeds came from, but Sprint currently advertises their 4G WiMAX offers speeds of 3-6 Mbps so that matches up. However, T-Mobile claims their current HSPA+ network has a max speed of 21 Mbps and we have seen real world numbers that were in the double digit range and matched the high-end of what Verizon expects to offer.
And, from another site:
Lowell McAdam, Verizon Wireless’ newly appointed chief operating officer said yesterday at the CTIA mobile industry event in San Francisco, “We have been waiting for years to say that things like M2M machine-to-machine, things like motion video, could be carried over a wireless network. We’re very excited to be on the leading edge of this with the largest launch of a 4G network.”
I don’t understand half this gobbledygook, for they may as well be writing in Greek. What is clear is nobody agrees if Verizon’s product line of being “the best” is really the best or one of the best.
Is there anything wrong with marketing yourself as being “one of the best?”
About Ari Herzog
No, if you state what area and in what way, otherwise your argument has no validity, therefore everyone would be saying it, meaning that effectively nobody would be saying it… if you see what I mean
Basically saying
“We have the best network!*
*speed 5-12 Mbps
WiMAX at 3-6 Mbps
HSPA+ at 1-7 Mbps (these are the fastest currently in the industry)”
is fine, as it is evidently true, but vague normative statements, should not be allowed in advertising, as I believe that it deceives people.
In my advertising classes in college — my degree is in communication — the professors always suggested calling yourself the best rather than better than someone else.
When you say you’re the best, there’s no way to argue. When you say you’re better than someone else, you have to state why and by what measurement to stay legal. That must be why every product on the market is the best but very few claim to be better.
Gip
“The best” can be mentioned if you have got all the statistics to prove you are the best. If the customers use the products and feel that the speeds mentioned are really correct then the company can claim to be the best.
I think the telecom industry is so undefined when it comes to defining “the best” that a company might as well claim it. I mean no one is going to try to disprove it, I’m not even sure what metrics you would consider to really determine such a claim. It’s just too subjective. I am with AT&T and I get a ton of dropped calls, so I can confidently say that they probably aren’t the best. So who knows, maybe Verizon is?
We have to thank the Internet—particularly, social media—for its openness. Verizon can say anything it wants. It can even claim dominance in the 4G market. However, in the end, it will be the consumers who will have the final verdict.
Fail to deliver your claims and expect the backlash to be as swift and unforgiving from those you have deceived.
It’s advertising, which means in most cases it goes in one ear and out the other. Or put another way it’s BS
I think it would be better if the word BEST would come from the users themselves. I mean, if you are selling a product, you would always say that your product is the best among its competition, right? If you wouldn’t, then why should they buy it? At the end of the day, no matter how many times you say you have the best product, the customers will still be the one to decide if you truly are.
Blah blah blah, we’ve heard it all before. Everybody says they are the best or at least used to. I thought that was old marketing.