“After whipping people into a frenzy a couple of months ago for his $599 iPhone, [Apple CEO Steve Jobs] now says he’s slashing the price by a third. The announcement Wednesday instantly drew scorn from Apple enthusiasts who’d rushed out to purchase the high-priced gizmo and now wonder whether they got played for chumps,” David Lazarus writes for The Los Angeles Times.
Lazarus writes, “It also ensured yet more free press for a company that excels at the art of buzz and at manipulating both consumers and the media — a sophisticated practice that’s increasingly being employed by businesses and political players. ‘Apple and Jobs are the masters,’ said Ramez Toubassy, president of Brand Sense Partners, a Century City brand-consulting firm that counts Britney Spears and MGM among its clients. ‘All consumer-goods companies can take a page from their book.’
“As Apple’s buzz machine kicked into high gear Thursday, the company said it would offer $100 in store credit to angry iPhone owners like Toubassy, thus guaranteeing still more publicity and the prospect of even more profit,” Lazarus writes. “Such is the power of buzz and the power of a hot brand.”
Full article here.
So, essentially, everyone’s going to write the same story today. “Apple and Jobs Kings of Media Manipulation and Buzz.”
Apple has a lot of inventory to move or else.
See either a new iPhone 2 come January MacWorld or Apple not coming out with one then and a gradual exiting from the market over the course of 2008.
All depends how much inventory gets sold now and the new year.
After all most people just want a slim, long battery life, low cost phone.
With the US economy headed for a recession in 2008, not much cash for $600 iPhones and expensive contracts.
For Whom The Bell Tolls wins “Dumbass of the Week” award.
Apple’s iPhone is already the best-selling smartphone. Apple is well on their way to dominating the market.
Next time, try some reality with your cornflakes.
Masterful!!!
Although, I am not in the camp that they had this planned out. I think the negative publicity and public reaction force Apple into action.
FWTBT,
First, the iPhone is now $399 and not the $699 you quote.
Second, the basic plan with AT&T;is exactly what I have with Verizon but it includes unlimited data for the iPhone AND the price is only a few dollars more.
More FUD extinguished! Especially that high plan cost one that everyone seems to believe.
Dammed if you do, dammed if you don’t. The media creates their own buzz…it’s the nature of the beast. Would someone stab this beast once and for all?
Noticed too the silence coming from “Redmond”. MS must be taking notes about how to get effective Media attention, or maybe Ballmer’s too busy filling out a refund form.
And why all of a sudden is everyone talking about how much the service is going to cost over the two years of the contract??? No one ever mentioned that fixed cost before with other phones/smartphones. You’ve always had to spend around $1500 for service over the life of a two-year contract but suddenly people start whining about it when the iPhone comes out.
The only chump is David Lazarus
” . . . or maybe Ballmer’s too busy filling out a refund form.”
It’s more likely that Ballmer has his head stuck in his ass again and an emergency staff meeting has assembled with winches, rope and loud, moaning prayers.
In Redmond, they call this “Casual Friday”.
“The only chump is David Lazarus”
Yeah. Don’t expect anyone to raise his writing career from the dead.
“Next time, try some reality with your cornflakes.”
Man, oh man! What kind of scary ass breakfast did you grow up eating?
“Son, I want you to eat every bite of that Death and Taxes Breakfast Strudel. I worked 14 hour days down in the mines for 40 years so we could afford a nice, warm slice of reality every morning.”
For Whom The Bell Tolls .
There you go. Another American thinking the world stretches from Florida to California. (World series anyone!!!) Even if the US has a recession there is a huge chunk of the planet who will still be buying Apple products.
They are a world wide company you know.
@British Mac Head: Forgive us, please. We’re not all so myopic. Just too many of us.
@British Mac Head
“There you go. Another American thinking the world stretches from Florida to California” – true… lots of us ‘mericans do. But then again, don’t a lot of you eruo-whiners just struggle for the political version of penis envy?
MDN word is red, as in some people see red when anything is posted anywhere that suggests that the USA is in any way superior, better, or best in any category whatsoever.
With the US economy headed for a recession in 2008, not much cash for $600 iPhones and expensive contracts.
Expensive contracts? With Verizon, the plan would be $80; $60 at T-Mobile with 300 minutes; $70 with Alltel; and $55 with Sprint.
So, the iPhone plan is $20 cheaper than Verizon, $10 cheaper than Alltel, equal to T-Mobile, and $5 more than Sprint for equivalent plans (okay, Sprint has 7pm nights). All of those plans are expensive (at least in some people’s eyes), but the iPhone is certainly not the most expensive.
It is more so – due to a HOT BRAND and a HOT PRODUCT and less about the spin-mastering-buzz you are claiming.
Then again, if Steve has it… Mr.Jobs uses the buzz skill well.
Yet another reason, why APPLE is showing other companies how business should run.
dd
“Apple and Steve Jobs are the masters of buzz marketing”
So they bought Drew Carey’s beer company?
The iPhone ignited smart-phone mania, for the moment
By John C. Dvorak
Sep 7, 2007 13:05:00 (ET)
BERKELEY, Calif. (MarketWatch) — A couple of years back, nobody except Research In Motion Ltd. with its BlackBerry could get much traction with a so-called smart phone. Now, because of the iPhone, everybody’s taking another run at the category.
It’s a blunder.
Apple Inc. (AAPL, Trade ) has dropped the prices for its iPhone, causing consternation among investors since this price cut seemed premature and panicky. It may be an indication that yet another smart phone will meet the fate of the rest of the lot, with just moderate sales.
Because customers that shelled out for the iPhone’s higher price got so irate, Apple had to offer a $100 rebate to previous buyers.
Still, there is no denying that the iPhone ignited interest in a category that seemed moribund. Just this week, we’ve heard the following:
Suddenly, Apple rolls out an iPod that’s essentially a gutted iPhone — no phone, but with most of the other features, the ones that made the iPhone interesting. This preceded the price cut on the iPhone.
Let’s step back from the scene and examine where it is headed. From what I can tell, it’s headed nowhere.
The Apple iPhone did indeed light a fire for the smart-phone category, and it did become the cool device du jour. But at the end of the day, nothing has really changed except a moment of enthusiasm came and went.
If anything, the touch-screen iPod may have killed the iPhone, because when you saw how people used the iPhone it was almost always about the iPod features, not about the phone. In fact, most users complained about the phone, about the address book inadequacies, about AT&T;Inc. (T, Trade ), about the Edge network, about 300-page bills and so on.
But the iPhone has a cool interface and you could show your photos on it. (So long as you were not in bright sunlight, you could.)
As activity is heating up in the category, you have to wonder whether Apple has driven the herd of cattle into a box canyon where everyone is stuck.
My take is that’s exactly what has happened. Because of exceptional promotion, the market was led to believe that there was a genuine and widespread demand for the programmable and powerful smart phone. But it’s more likely to remain an expensive niche product with a small overall market share.
Out of this experience, consumers may well see some cool phones and new ideas that can be incorporated into cheaper products. Many of these phones will be conversation pieces: “Cool phone!”
That’s the good news, but that is going to be it. Time to move along.
Listen, one thing I’ve noticed about Apple, is that they don’t f*ck with price points.
@For Whom The Bell Tolls, I’m talking to you.
They would NOT lower the price to clear out inventory. Never have, never will.
They’ve got enough ca$h to eat the inventory, which likely wasn’t necessary because their planning is impeccable these days.
I’d guess that the rebate was a waiting-in-the-wings plan in case this sentiment arose.
The ultimate-ish plan will probably be to establish 2 new price points for the iPhone:
$399 – low end. 8GB for now, and this holiday season.
$599 – high end, probably double the low-end, whatever that is when it comes out
Now these may very well be 3G and/or GPS models by next year, (I’ll bet my middle testicle that radio, in any way we know it now, will NEVER happen), and the price points could even go DOWN, as they get a significant back-end from AT&T;at this point.
In short, Apple is getting a kickback for now from the network provider, and they will establish 2 or 3 price points that will be very competitive with the, er, competition.