San Francisco was treated to a spectacular aerial display with skydivers plummeting in honour of T-Mobile’s newest launch: the MyTouch 3G. 

The highly anticipated, highly coveted and high priced phone was launched yesterday in the US. Of course there were the far-sighted people who had pre-ordered the beauties in advance, and received them towards the tail end of July. However the rest of the American public was able to treat themselves to one of the phones only yesterday. 

The MyTouch 3G is a gorgeous phone built by HTC and powered by Google. It comes in three different shades: white, black and wine red. Of course, since it is powered by Google, there is built-in integration with most of Google’s products. According to the website, there are thousands of apps, superfast sharing and super fast 3G. So in sum, the MyTouch 3G is a very desirable mobile phone handset. 

The phone will be retailing at $199. It is a new and improved take on the G1, which was on shelves 10 months ago. The phone is lighter and slimmer, and minus the hardware keypad, which may or may not be a good idea depending on the individual user. Additionally the MyTouch 3G syncs with Microsoft Exchange and is reputed to have a better battery life.

However, all that being said, T-Mobile still went completely overboard with the launch. 

There were 100 skydivers plummeting out of the sky in formation and landing in four different spots along Embarcadero; namely the Justin Herman Plaza, Pier 39 Rooftop, Marina Green and the Moscone recreation centre. The divers, supplied by a company called Skydiving Innovations, were all dressed in different costumes, in an effort to reflect the individuality of the cell phone. One skydiver made his entrance dressed as Elvis, and another was impersonating Tina Turner. Two of the four groups formed the letter ‘T’, presumably standing for T-Mobile. 

There were many more gimmicks once the divers were on terra firma; confetti rained down on spectators, and many were handed merchandise that was branded with MyTouch, including luggage tags and chap sticks. However there seemed to be very little obvious connection between a mobile launch and this carnival-like display. Granted some of the divers landed on large MyTouch floats, and there were a few parachutes advertising the new mobile phone, but other than those few touches, MyTouch was not really in evidence. 

The event was aimed at alerting the public to the epic launch of the phone. The company had shelled out a staggering $17,500 to stage the event in all its glory. The aviation department, forest departments and even the residents were informed of the impending spectacle well in advance. Numerous permissions needed to be granted. There is no way to judge how exactly the event will impact sales, or to gauge whether any of the spectators are more likely to buy a MyTouch to tie in with their free luggage tags and chap sticks. It would have made an interesting case study to study the impact of the aerial marketing stunt.