RSS SubscribeUnless you’ve been living under a rock, you’re probably aware that last week Apple announced the newest addition to their lineup, the iPad. After months of speculation, leaked specs, pricing suppositions and hundreds of leaked photos and imagined renderings, Steve Jobs came on stage and showed off what he calls a “magical and revolutionary” device. The initial response was mostly ho-hum at best and the throng expecting a life changing device was left mostly unsatisfied.
Personally, I was initially excited and intrigued when Steve first showed off the device, but as he went through his demo and brought game developers on stage to show off their work, then highlighted items I found to be extremely dull (I’m looking at you iWork) I found myself less and less interested in the device and instead thinking about “what could have been.” Judging from the response I’m seeing on most gadget focused websites, I’m not alone.
But then I took a step back, this is a company that is forecast their Q1 revenue at over $15B, so obviously they’re doing something right. In looking at their product launch, there were many elements that jumped out at me at that I can apply to my business process. These elements fall on the agency side as well as on the client side. Let’s take a look at some of these.
- Build a buzz
I’m not breaking new ground when I say this, but no one knows how to build a buzz better than Apple. If you follow their activity closely, you’ve probably been expecting a table announcement for several months. There are literally thousands of websites who do nothing but speculate on what Apple is going to do next. Apple of course never addresses any of these items publicly (as anyone who has ever asked an Apple Genius knows firsthand) but more importantly, they never try to stop the speculation.
