You are dead wrong.
Yep. You heard it here first.
Sure. Apple and my buddy Steve might very well announce some new, cool product. Given all the "leaks", I expect it will probably be some sort of tablet form-factor portable computing device [how's that for geek-speak to suck the life out of a phrase?].
But what if a new tablet was not announced? What if the announcement was not much at all? Like last year, when the Hype Engine was again at Full Military Thrust in June, all guns blaring at the possibility of a new iPhone with, remember, things like:
- Front-facing camera
- OLED screen
- Removable battery
- Built-in videoconferencing
- Automatic Save the Whales
- Full Checkbook-balancing
Ok...but you get my point I hope. None of these things happened. In fact, the announcement was rather boring. But only Steve Jobs could do the following:
- Spin up an entire industry, whipping them up into a journalistic frenzy, spurring speculation upon speculation about what "might be coming next".
- Garner TONS of free and extremely valuable PR for his company, with very little actual investment on his part.
- Get TONS of free and extremely valuable product advice, with very little actual investment on his part.
A. To GET PEOPLE INTERESTED IN WHAT YOU DO. The struggle for relevancy in a sea of Internet sound bytes and techno-journalistic-babble is overwhelming. Yet Stevie-boy cuts through this crap with devastating ease. With something as simple as sending out an understated Press Invite to a "limited audience" [yeah, right, limited to the entire world], he turns the entire industry on its head, and turns the media into an extension of his PR team. Steve Jobs does this better than anybody else. He does it so well, he can actually create a new category without actually announcing a product. Think about it. Has Steve or Apple actually announced anything? Have they mentioned the word "tablet"? Nope. Yet several other companies have announced tablets, and many more have announced they are working on tablets. Yet, way before Apple makes any formal announcements, Steve can rest assured that there will be a nice, soft landing place for his new baby. Everybody else has made sure of this for him.
B. To GET PEOPLE TO NOTICE YOU. Now that he has manipulated the entire industry to create a new category for him, Steve has made damn sure that Apple is being discussed in every breath. Apple's new tablet is already the standard which all others are being measured by - yet it does not even exist! Apple already has the high ground, without firing a shot! By saying nothing, Steve Jobs has made the shrewdest of PR moves; he has won the hearts and minds of not only potential customers, but the journalists who write for them. And when you do this, you win.
C. To GET RELEVANT FEEDBACK ABOUT YOUR PRODUCTS. And, finally, after creating the category, and getting everybody to think that your product is the best in that category, what do you do? Well, if you are Steve Jobs, you get the entire industry to tell you what to build! Tons of stories, concepts, even mockups of what the ideal Apple tablet should be have already inundated the web-verse. Now, Apple may choose to ignore all this free product advice [because we all know they know best], but think about it. If it were your company, wouldn't you prefer to have the option of knowing what all your potential customers WANTED in a new product, in a new category, BEFORE you actually announced anything?
So my friends, when we all huddle around our computers on Wednesday, to hear the latest Sermon from the Mount Apple; as Steve comes down from the mountain with perhaps, not two, but hopefully at least one tablet in his hands, remember this:
It's not about the product - it's about how we are all dancing to Apple's tune!
And loving it in the process!
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