By now, unless you own Apple’s iPhone or one of the handful of other devices, you’ve grown accustomed to having your carrier’s logo blasted onto the back or front of your phone. Usually, these logos are placed onto unused space, either on the device’s backplate or on the bezel of the front of the phone alongside the manufacturer’s logo.
With the Galaxy Note II, Verizon is taking branding into uncharted territory by placing their carrier logo square on the multi-purpose physical button on the front of the device. Now, Galaxy Note II owners will have to look at that logo every single time they touch that button, which my experience with the Galaxy S III tells me will be quite often. And that’s just one of the logos you’ll be treated to on the Galaxy Note II; Verizon’s also added a big Verizon logo as well as their 4G LTE logo to the back of the device. The result is the worst-looking Galaxy Note II on all the U.S. carriers, and something that could hurt Verizon’s sales of the niche product.
As branding is getting more obtrusive, it’s becoming more and more apparent that these branding implementations miss the point. Phones are fairly personal devices, and aside from occasionally showing off an application or a video to a friend in a social situation, I’m usually the only person laying eyes on my device. To that end, most smartphone users already know what carrier they are using, and constantly being reminded of the network they chose with an obtrusive logo not only doesn’t bring more customers in the door, it also risks alienating customers they already have.
[Image from Engadget]