Nick Cannon uses his iPhone to tweet an ad for the T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy S6

If you ask us, the handset manufacturers and carriers have one thing terribly wrong with their marketing. They love to hand out freebies to celebrities who wouldn't know a well spec'd handset if one bit them on the derriere. Companies that produce handsets, mobile operators and their marketing firms think that if someone famous is seen on social media talking about a free phone they have been handed, the whole world will want to purchase that model. Instead, they should be giving the free phones to people who actually can tell the difference between a premium smartphone and a lemon. Those are the people who know how to express to other smartphone fanatics how great a new handset is, and why.

The latest lame attempt at a celebrity endorsement comes from T-Mobile. Last we checked, the Samsung Galaxy S6 and Samsung Galaxy S6 edgedon't seem to require any help in the sales department, but the carrier decided that it would be cool to give a Galaxy S6 to Nick Cannon. Now, we don't know Mr. Cannon and he seems to be a good guy, but we wonder how much he really knows about smartphones and Twitter.

In the course of singing his praises of the Galaxy S6 he received from T-Mobile, Cannon sent out a tweet on Friday evening that thanked T-Mobile for the device and said that "the camera on this phone is insane." And that might have seemed like a genuine thought from the comedian except that it was negated by the hashtag #ad that immediately followed it. And to make matters worse, the tweet clearly revealed that it was sent via Cannon's iPhone.

Here's a thought directed at any company looking to sell more smartphones. Instead of using a celebrity pitchman for your next campaign, why not have real smartphone fanatics push your product. They know more about smartphones, are very passionate about the subject, and if they love your product, it will show.


source: @NickCannon via RedmondPie