Exploring the Art & Science of Marketing
iPhone steals show from CES: How?
Steve Jobs likes to compete, and his iPhone announcement single-handedly stole the show from CES in the press today.
I like Apple products, but I really believe that the media has a love affair with the Cupertino company. Let me explain.
If you ever visit a newsroom, take a gander at all the mac computers you see in the room. Seriously. Writers use them. Ad people use them. Copy folks and layout people use macs. Newsrooms, magazines, television stations and bloggers alike often use a mac over a PC. (Not all, but a large number). What I think has happened is that Apple created a great experience for the design folks who have been using macs for years to layout the paper, and that love affair has spilled into the editorial departments as well. But a great experience with a product doesn’t make it popular. Users make it popular, and Apple has a ton of those inside some of the most powerful and influential media companies in the world. (Time, Newsweek, etc . . . ). Don’t believe me? Here’s some names.
David Pogue, New York Times. Mac user
Walt Mossberg, Wall Street Journal. Mac user. (He loves macs).
. . . and on and on.
So, when Apple makes an announcement over something like a cell phone, it gets tons of press because Steve and the gang had been laying the groundwork for years. (This whole post sounds like a conspiracy theory or something).
| Print article | This entry was posted by Russ on January 9, 2007 at 11:25 pm, and is filed under Business, Business Writing, Consultant, Consulting, Customer Evangelism, Media Relations, PR, Public Relations, Russ Page, Strategic Marketing, Utah Bloggers, Utah Business, Utah PR, Utah PR Firm, Utah Public Relations. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |

about 5 years ago
Russ-
I think that a great experience and users go hand-in-hand to make a product popular. While the user is the vehicle to make it popular, it never would have got their attention if the product wasn’t good.
about 5 years ago
It’s the ultimate PR coup… Macworld is a blip on the radar in comparison to CES yet Steve Jobs managed to make CES a footnote on the day. Very very impressive.
about 5 years ago
I agree with Clay in principle, but in practice that isn’t always the case.
I remember when Apple announced its Mighty Mouse and the announcement landed on the front page of CNN.com. The Mighty Mouse has done okay, but there are a lot of people (even among Mac users) who hate it. But that completely aside, it’s a computer mouse! What chance would any other company have of getting such coverage from such a mundane announcement? Slim to none. It’s in instances like this that the media’s Apple bias really shines through.