Verizon Offers a Droid Deal, But Will You Bite?

Holiday sales are in full swing here in the States, and this tasty offer from one of the largest wireless networks in the country, Verizon, will have people drooling.

Or will it?

Verizon Wireless is offering a buy one get one free deal to customers who purchase the Motorola Droid at $199.99, the free phone being the HTC Droid Eris (with 2 year contract of course). The sale starts today and stretches through Monday; it may be a good opportunity to get a new phone for yourself and another for a friend or loved one.

Now, this deal isn’t new to the wireless carrier, but something came to mind when I first saw the news: the Blackberry Storm. Verizon did a buy one get one deal on the failure that was the Storm when numbers were stagnant a while back. By no means am I suggesting that the numbers are the same in both cases, in fact, the Droid seems to be doing decently, with about 700,000 units sold since the beginning of November.

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I know what you’re thinking: what about the iPhone? In reality, it’s somewhat unfair to compare the Droid sales to iPhone sales. We all want to. I know I want to. Although, even the very first version of the iPhone sold better in 30 hours than the Droid did in the same time. But I digress. Pushing iPhone numbers aside for a moment, let’s think about what this weekend deal may mean for the Droid: it could be that estimated sales have been exaggerated, and it’s an act of desperation to tempt customers to purchase… or it could be nothing at all.

But, I’ll be blunt: Verizon is really overselling the Droid. I’m glad I don’t watch television, because the ads get on my nerves as it is. Storming the phone through brick walls and calling it a robot just looks like they’re trying too hard. You don’t want to overdo it with inflammatory ads that may alienate buyers.

It’s also not a good thing when advertising per unit is $100. And that’s if they reach the coveted 1 million units sold. With $100 million put into advertising this year alone, factoring in current sales figures, advertising cost per unit is sitting at around $145. That’s just short of the full price of the phone!

I understand that it’s an investment to gain momentum through advertising, but it needs to stick to succeed. Only time will tell, the Android platform has a lot going for it… and hey, it’s always nice to have healthy competition.

What do you think about the Droid ad campaign? Will you be running out this weekend to grab one?