Seven reasons SanDisk’s “iDon’t” campaign is a joke

SanDisk, a company that most people don’t know is the world’s number two seller of portable digital music players behind Apple, has launched an in your face advertising campaign entitled “iDon’t” to try to convince the world that anyone using an iPod is a sheep. Even as offensive and disgusting as I find the campaign, I’ve tried to step back and analyze it objectively from SanDisk’s point of view and what they’re trying to accomplish. And as much as I don’t want to come off as a biased iPod user, I keep coming to the same conclusion no matter what angle I look at it from: the “iDon’t” campaign is a joke. Here’s why:

1) This is no “Switch Campaign”

“iDon’t” isn’t the first time a tech company with a minority marketshare has launched a campaign to try to let users know that there’s another choice out there. Apple has twice used such campaigns (first with “Switch” and currently with “Getamac”) to promote its Macintosh computers in the face of the PC majority. But while Apple has never hesitated to insult the PC, it’s always been careful not to insult users of the PC in the process. But SanDisk is consciously insulting iPod users, calling them sheep and chimps, and all that’s going to do is to help ensure that if any of the fifty million current iPod users ever does switch away from the iPod, it won’t be to a SanDisk product. Ironically enough, the one time Apple did try to insult PC users, in 1985’s “Lemmings” campaign, the ad failed miserably.

2) SanDisk is using CafePress for their T-shirts

CafePress is a company that allows you to order a single T-shirt with any image printed on it you like. It’s one step above having your mom iron something onto your shirt for you. CafePress is who a blogger uses when he wants to sell two or three shirts to his readers. CafePress is who you use when you want to walk around wearing a T-shirt with your a picture of your grandkid on it. CafePress is not who you use if you’re a multi-billion dollar company and you want to turn the tide of public opinion against another multi-billion dollar company – and yet that’s exactly who SanDisk is using. Want a shirt with an iSheep on it? You have to order it through CafePress. Come on, even we here at iProng don’t use CafePress for our T-shirts. Does that mean we’re bigger than them? No, it just means that SanDisk has either invested an embarrassingly small amount of money into this campaign, or they’re expecting to sell so few T-shirts that they were unwilling to run down to the local silk screener and have a hundred shirts printed up.

3) SanDisk is linking to disreputable sources

Most of the “sources” SanDisk is quoting as evidence as to why the iPod is “bad” are unfamiliar, but one in particular stands out. It was a website launched two years ago by an aspiring independent filmmaker who thought he could kick-start his career by defacing Apple’s streetside ads in Manhattan and releasing a short film of him doing so, along with a some highly misleading statements about the iPod’s battery. Every iPod user who has heard of this guy knows he’s a con, and yet this is one of the sources SanDisk has chosen to try to convince iPod users that there’s something wrong with the fact that they’re using an iPod.

4) You don’t use a fictional story from The Onion to make your case

The other recognizable source on SanDisk’s site is The Onion, a website highly enjoyed by many users, and widely known as a site that publishes humorous satires that are all one hundred percent fiction. But in pointing to The Onion as a source, does SanDisk point out that every word on the site is fiction? No, of course not.

5) You don’t use an apostrophe in the name of a website

Nothing like a good tactical error to make a bad idea turn out even worse. Most of the folks gullible enough to fall for the “iDon’t” campaign are also naive enough about technology that if they hear about this campaign by word of mouth (unlikely), they’ll type in “idon’t.com” into their browser, only to get an error message because of the obvious fact that you can’t type an apostrophe into a URL bar in any browser. Enough said.

6) SanDisk just made its first impression with most music lovers a negative one

Despite the fact that SanDisk is an eleven billion dollar company and it currently holds the number two position behind the iPod in the portable digital music player market, most people have no idea that SanDisk is even in the market. By using this overtly negative and hostile campaign as a way of introducing itself and its brand name to music lovers worldwide, SanDisk has just made its first impression a negative one. Doesn’t work on first dates, doesn’t work on a job interview, and it certainly doesn’t work when you’re trying to overthrow the iPod.

7) SanDisk’s alternative is apparently a piece of crap

The final link on the “iDon’t” site points to “The Alternative” in the form the SanDisk Sansa e200, a device that looks like they blatantly copied the iPod nano and then ran over it with a pickup truck. No really, look at the image attached to this article if you think we’re kidding. But aside from the company’s bizarre decision to make their own product look so bad in their own image, it only takes a glance to see that SanDisk isn’t offering anything new or different or original here. It’s also apparently a piece of crap, as evidenced by the CNET review that SanDisk has linked to, which states that its buttons can be “difficult to press,” and if that’s not enough, “low levels of system noise can heard through headphones at low or zero volume.” Hey, they said it, we didn’t.??Come on, this is a device that you want to piss off fifty milion iPod users in the name of promoting?

In all, if you’re a happy iPod user and you’re concerned that SanDisk’s “iDon’t” campaign is going to cause some kind of difficulty for you, you can stop worrying. All this campaign will do is shift SanDisk’s reputation in the iPod market from being an unknown to being a joke, likely leaving the number two slot in the market wide open for some other also-ran to slide into. The three people who actually fall for this hackneyed attempt on SanDisk’s part to bring down the iPod can have fun shopping at CafePress.