“In one case, the more common of the two, marketers are given a product and told to go sell it. It’s up to them to determine how to position the brand in a way that sets it apart from all the rest,” Adamson reports.
“On the other side of the sell-it spectrum is the product that sells itself, the iPad,” Adamson reports. “How does this happen? A company identifies a specific need in the marketplace and develops a product or service to fill this need, generally in a first-mover manner. This is not to say that the other marketers don’t do their homework. It’s a matter of exponential vs. incremental. In other words, there’s no need to determine which bells or whistles or ticking clocks to focus on in order to make this kind of sale, but simply a de facto presentation of the story; “you asked, we listened, and here it is.” (Alerting the media to this fact also helps.)”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
One thing I noticed the other day while visiting an Apple Store… The iPads look disgustingly dirty when the display is off. Fingerprints galore.
@Macintosh
Ummmm… I guess that’s because so many people can’t wait to get their hands on them. Is the glass half full or….
I went to my local Apple Store this weekend and never managed to see an iPad with the display off…every single on in use, with a crowd three deep looking over their shoulder!
That’s because the ARE disgustingly dirty in the Apple Store. It’s a public place, and the public is notoriously dirty.
With all the hand sanitizing germaphobes out there now days… I guess it shows how desirable the iPad is. It’s helping people get past phobias and OCD
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Guy sitting next to me on plane yesterday fired up his iPad, fooled around with it for about 3 minutes, looked puzzled, stared at the seat back in front of him for awhile, tapped the screen a couple more times, shrugged and shut it down and pulled out the airline’s soon-to-be-extinct magazine made of paper and ink.
Yeah, the thing sold itself. Whatever else he may be, Steve Jobs is a master marketer first. If you are good at that, all else just falls into place.
@why
Gosh thanks for that info. That proves it, big FAIL. Damn, I am selling my APPL today and will cancel my 3G order as well. Who knew it was such a flop. Thanks again. You better tell Steve so he can close down and give us stockholders our money back.
It wouldn’t be a day at MDN without a Fred Mertz article.
@why:
What’s your point?
It’s too hard to use? Not much print media available yet? What?
Actually, Why, he was probably showing off. In any event, do you think the guy paid at least $500 for something that days later he still has no clue about, and takes it on the plane anyway? Pleeese.
@jaundiced
Happens all the time. For example: while this guy was wondering why he had to have the iPad, I was staring at a great number of iPhone apps that I completely forgot why I installed them or what they would do.
The point is, Steve fails to explain exactly HOW he is changing our lives and many of us feel stupid in not knowing.
Right,
now I’ll have to rush to cancel my 3G iPad order, hope I’m in time, otherwise I’ll have to smash them one at a time with a framing hammer…
Why not rename this place FredMertzDailyNews?
@ HugeB
You better line for M$ phones just annouced.
I still LONG AAPL and never think of taking profit.
I think what the story is getting at is that at least in Apple’s advertising, for the iPhone and now the iPad, Apple uses a real device showing the real screen. Who else does that? They all use SIMULATED SCREEN IMAGES. The iPhone and iPad both use REAL screen images, because it’s that beautiful. The only thing Apple does for the sake of brevity is to shorten image sequences, in iPhone ads.
As excerpted by MDN, this article seems to say a whole lot of nothing.
Read the actual article, and it is actually interesting – if you are interested in the field of marketing in general.
MDN becoming Readers’ Digest?
@Why..
Last week I was on a plane with my iPad…. watched a movie, read a book, played a game, watched a podcast or 3, listened to some music, had bluetooth headphones so no wires, the lady in the other isle had a Nook, she looked very envious..
Now these are all things I could have done with my iPhone, but none as well presented, nor hardly the battery life to support them.
I am a very satisfied iPad user
Why,
Just because you’re suffering from the ‘Mad Cow’, it doesn’t mean that everyone else has that affliction.
@hughb,
I have seen a post of yours before. You keep saying ‘FAIL’ and that you are cancelling your preorder. I thought you would have done that by now! Go back to your M$ computer and remove the MDN bookmark!
@auren
Is the glass half full or….
Half Touched?!
@ Jers333
Think sarcasm.
@Jers333
I thought my sarcasm was obvious. I am not selling my stock and will not cancel my order. But just FYI I have an iPad already and a 3G on order. In our house we have 3 iPhones, 2 iMacs both 27″, 2 Macbooks, AppleTV and about half a dozen or so iPods. In fact I have an original 1984 Mac as well as a Cube. All still in working order. I could be called a fanboy by some.
…”I thought my sarcasm was obvious.”
It was. To most of us, but not all (apparently)…
And OTHERS sell it, too. Today’s Globe and Mail features a full page ad from Thompson Reuters about an app for iPad. Half the ad is an photo of iPad running the app. The copy goes on about cutting edge info on cutting edge devices.
CIBC has a TV ad for their iPhone app.
Piles of free advertising for Apple, and companies selling Apple devices in order for them to sell their services.
You know posts like Why’s are a quandary.
While there is no end to the “undoubtedly authentic” antidotes from “oh-so-clever” trolls on this forum, there is also a community of extremely subtle lampooners who’s satirical caricatures of the “oh so clever” trolls can become difficult to discern from the genuine article.
Which leads to the question; Is Why for really for real, or just another laughable homage to hapless apple hating trolls?
I was in Best Buy yesterday. One of the sales people was walking around the store with one playing with it, but they didn’t have any to sell, just display. We were there for about a half an hour and I watched this guy do nothing but play on the iPad, and grudgingly show it to interested customers.