UPDATE: Here are the deets on the iPology $100 rebate.
Okay, it’s been a pretty good week for the marketing folks to point out what good marketing can do for you (if you are in marketing you know how hard it is to convince some execs how much good marketing can do for you when paired with good design).
A few weeks ago Apple generates tons of free publicity just by announcing a special event (no news, but get ready for some news) then most of the news of the revamped iPods leak out (including photos and names, rare for Apple) and then they drop the price of the most heavily hyped product in our lifetime, the iPhone. But all that gets dwarfed by Steve’s apology for cutting the price and undercutting his early adopters – so much so that MarketWatch’s Tom Bemis invents a term for it, sure to be taught in business schools everywhere – the iPology. And all this does is ensure that Apple doesn’t have to spend a dime on its traditional marketing when the popular press does it all for them, at much greater reach and value. In fact, by my calculation the value of the free advertising Apple received (this blog included) is greater the cost of the $100 rebate times all the iPhone sold to date. Folks, you are living through what has to be the Golden Age of marketing and Steve Jobs is its king. Enjoy the ride.
Exactly! 😉
So, is the magic word “Secrecy” ? Keep it all a secret so people start to guess. People always want what they can’t get, so making it a secret makes people WANT to know.
In the end it’s all so simple 🙂
Secrecy earns you free publicity for sure. One of the first things Steve did was put a lid on leaks at Apple – he used to say that Apple was a ship that leaked at the top.
Of course secrecy is good but you still need the frenzy of people speculating to make more people care and pay attention and get sucked into the drama. Watching Apple really is like a good soap opera – and an amazing story for the ages.
Steve
That leaking ship quote is just great, it’s so true. I too noticed those wise words when I watched the interview.
All this may very well have been planned in great detail weeks before the actual event. Make no mistake, the apology message too. It’s always truly remarkable to watch Apple and Steve Jobs working their magic. They just do an excellent job, to say the very least.
Great site by the way, I’ll be keeping my eye on it.
It was a nice gesture no doubt. I like the fact that Jobs chose to react, so many other organizations would have been afraid of how much a gesture would have hurt their bottom line.
Of course Jobs has a very watchful media following that he can ensure will spread the word for him and he was able to make this decision without being worried about the bottom line, as you suggest.
But one thing that Jobs did do, was completely misinterpret who those angry people out there were. As mentioned in several places, it was those early adopters that Jobs was trying to appease with this rebate. In my opinion, early adopters don’t care about the money they spent. They care about getting their hands on this new technology first.
Jobs went for the obvious…I think he could have made a more powerful statement than the unoriginal, “here is some money back”
Seth nails it here IMO:
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2007/09/how-to-spend-20.html