When I went to work on Apple’s advertising long ago, I was surprised how every little thing we did was so overanalyzed by journalists and critics.
When I went to work on Intel’s advertising many years later, I was surprised how few people gave a damn what we did.
Well, that’s the way notoriety works. Apple is exciting, Intel is… Intel. People don’t exactly hang on its every ad.
Apple benefits tremendously from this. But it also pays a price — because everyone’s an expert out there, and the Internet rewards writers for covering controversial topics. Or making up the controversies themselves.
Case in point: tonight I was reading this article in the New York Times by Nick Bilton, titled Has Apple Lost Its Cool? Okay, you sucked me in with that one. But then I get to the reasons why Apple is “under fire,” including this one: Steven P. Jobs has been criticized for his terse responses to customers who ask questions about Apple products.
Geez. Shame on Steve for talking to his customers. Last I checked, people were kind of stunned and amazed that he actually takes the time to answer customer emails. He’s been informative, even compassionate. The real reporters over at the New York Times even wrote an article about it just a few weeks ago. Worse still, when you click the terse response link, it takes you to a blog where the poster and all the commenters are discussing the content of one of Steve’s emails—but not one of them is complaining about it.
Shoddy.
Tags: ken segall, steve jobs email
