Slashdot Mirror
Lack Of iTunes Phone Marketing Irks Motorola
Alias777 writes "Motorola has criticized Apple for not marketing three proposed new phones that will be able to play downloaded music from Apple's iTunes service. "[Steve Jobs'] perspective is that you launch a product on Sunday and sell it on Monday," says Ron Garriques, president of Motorola's mobile phone division. In response, Motorola has delayed release of the iTunes-equipped phones a few more months."
Seems to me that Motorola can complain all they want about Apple. If they delay their product out of annoyace at Steve, they're the ones who will lose revenue, not Apple. Apple is going to continue to sell iPods with or without Motorola.
I don't get why they would even whine about this. They should concentrate on launching their phones and spend a little less time criticizing someone who has been an extremely successful businessman and might know a thing or two about consumer marketing.
Motorola complaining about how Apple markets? Need anyone remind Mr. Garriques that the Apple brand, which just had its most profitable, highest revenue-generating quarter in the company's entire history, has achieved the status of cultural icon and introduced one "it" product after another since Jobs' return?
Nevermind the fact that Motorola's current line up is, on an economy of scale, as unwiedly, unattractive, unimaginatively-designed and poorly built as the DPC-550 flip phone they introduced some ten years ago.
Garriques has missed the point. Jobs' approach is right (big surprise).
The more advance notice you give of a product offering, the more the momentum dies down when the product is actually available--especially if you aren't ready to deliver. Apple learned this lesson the hard way in the mid-90s when the first PowerPC Macintoshes were not being delivered in time to meet demand.
Apple has taken numerous steps to ensure sustained growth... one of these is delaying marketing until the product arrives. Then they blitz... Doing it the other way around, you're banking everything on that first week. Now people know it's out there, big deal.
When Apple has a great idea, what they want to do is create yet another cultural phenomenon. One way to do this is to rely heavily on word of mouth to generate buzz... Do you see ANY other computer manufacturers inserting logo stickers in their packaging? Do you see anyone driving a car with a Windows or Dell sticker on the rear windshield? You'll see it with Apple owners all the time (myself included). Why? Because since the days of Guy Kawasaki and the EvangeList, evangelizing has always been one of Apple's marketing strongholds... it has to be backed up, of course, by good product.
Dell isn't an amazing piece of machinery, it's a discount box... Naturally, who the hell cares to advertise they own a Dell? Owning a Dell certainly doesn't signal that you have, indeed, arrived. It just means you're cheap.
Another thing... Apple's stores... walk by... do you see how it works? Huge glass windows, uncluttered real estate... white backdrops against which the products stand out like fashion displays.... People are magnetized by it and go in. Make no mistake, every element of the Apple Store design was pretty carefully conceived to maximize marketing potential.
Want a PC Clone? Go to Best Buy and search for it amidst a sea of heavily cluttered displays with unknowledgeable people who don't know the damnedest thing about computers. So there you are.
Apple builds an experience, and they want to keep building it. You know... I never would have thought it, but the first time I was peeking into a Mercedes at the Mercedes-Nissan dealership that serviced my Nissan, the salespeople knew exactly what they were doing when they handed me the keys to an $80,000 S-class sedan with only these words, "Just bring it back before we close." That's all it took... I was hooked by the experience of driving that thing and could never be the same. Next car I got was a Mercedes C240 with a very competitive lease. Why? Oh, come on... they know I'll be back for more.
So does Apple.
Motorola hasn't delayed the release of the phone, it's just delayed showing and announcing the phone. From the several articles on the subject that I've read, Motorola doesn't in fact appear to be "irked" and they have not in any way "criticized" Apple. In fact, from the AP article on the subject, Motorola seems to be agreeable to the decision: "'We were doing it (the announcement) the old way,' Zander said." Alias777 probably should have read the article.