David Ogilvy said that you should treat the customer like your wife. Treat her with respect; don’t talk down to her like she is an imbecile. Clearly, this Director from HTC didn’t get the message, because he gets totally owned by Vlad Savov, Senior Editor for the Verge.
As the name suggests, the HTC One Mini is a smaller version of HTC’s flagship phone for 2013, the HTC One. The phone is smaller and more pocketable, but it features less impressive hardware compared to the full-sized HTC One.
At the launch of the phone, the spokesperson runs through a substantial list of  hardware compromises that were made, before proudly declaring that it is “a Mini version of the HTC One with no compromises.” Vlad’s timing is impeccable as he immediately cuts in with, “Apart from the ones you just mentioned”.
Oh snap.
All of this occurs on camera and can be seen below.
[youtuber youtube=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NB1dfdPvs8′]
You’d think that HTC would come up with messaging that doesn’t blatantly insult the intelligence of its customers. Eventually, I read that HTC backtracked by claiming that the “compromises are technical, not practical“, which is a lot more logical and palatable to the customer, but to me the damage is already done.
The HTC One Mini will probably be a very decent mid-range Android phone, but if I saw the video above, all I would remember is the time HTC tried to pull a fast one.
