Calm down, tech events are good, really
Criticizing Apple intro events is one of life’s great pleasures. It’s so easy, anyone can play.
“Where’s the magic?” “Where are the surprises?” “The humor?” “Why so glossy and slick?”
If you’re looking for a culprit, you know where to find him. Tim Cook is responsible for every bit of the content. He’s proven himself guilty of one major crime: he isn’t Steve Jobs.
So, yeah, these things are flawed—but they are hardly useless.
I see every Apple event as the ‘opening argument” in the court of public opinion for a new batch of products. This is Apple’s chance to show its cards, explain the “why” and lay the groundwork for marketing to come.
You can get the facts online anytime. But there’s a human side to technology (at least there should be) that exists only in these events, when Apple execs stand before us and make their case. That can be a plus or a minus, and it is revealing either way.
Personally, I’d rather spend two hours watching an Apple event than two hours reading about it. But some disagree.
Take NYT writer Shira Ovide, who says We don’t need tech infomercials—from Apple, Google, Tesla or anyone else. Her premise sounds tough, but her arguments are flimsy.
Mary Kay-style demonstrations for the 400th edition of an iPad are clearly not the most serious problem in technology or the world.
With over 350 million iPads sold, I suspect there are a few people who might be interested.
Most people will never even watch these things, thank goodness.
Correct. Definitely not “most people.” Only interested customers, tech writers and industry observers. In other words, Apple is speaking to people who do watch these things—not the entire universe.
Marketing 101 student: “Why put on a big event when you can just write a blog post about it?”
Shira: Exactly!
What’s the alternative? Well, Microsoft on Tuesday published a blog post that described the latest model of its Surface laptop and other products. Spotify also posted on its website about its new experimental gadget that’s like a modernized car stereo remote... Microsoft and Spotify showed that most product launches should be a blog post and a two-minute video. The Microsoft and Spotify products seemed to get noticed and written about on Tuesday even without a two-hour hype machine
Apple already does the equivalent of a blog post by telling the full story on its website. That alone—or a blog post—does not make a brilliant marketing strategy.
It’s a tough choice, but I’d take marketing advice from Steve Jobs over that of Shira Ovide. Steve proved that marketing is every bit as important as the products themselves. Simply laying out the facts is hardly enough in this hyper-competitive world.
This is old hat for Apple, too. And on Tuesday it did what it has done forever: It released an intentionally vague message about what is expected to be a canned webcast presentation.
Enough of these vague messages, Apple! Who on earth can decipher them? All you did was give us a date, time and place. Who has time for this kind of detective work?
This achieved its goal. People who care about technology talked about it.
Apple tried to do something and it worked? This is madness, I tell you. Madness!
Look, product messaging comes in two flavors—the ads we seek out and the ads that are forced upon us.
I’ve railed about the latter for way too many years. Ads on network TV and ad-supported streaming services are often way too repetitive and deeply annoying. If anyone wants to start a war against advertising pollution, I’m all in.
But product intro events are purely voluntary. Watch them or don’t. Your choice.
You know, there’s already a harsh penalty in place for companies that repeatedly bore us or waste our time. People stop paying attention. Companies need to evolve or die, in products and marketing.
The world is filled with things worth worrying about. Tech company events just aren’t one of them.
Good and funny analysis (?) of events to introduce products. Thanks.
You are absolutely right – everybody can decide whether to watch or not.
My feeling is, that those who criticize Apple and others for their shows are fed up with the same formula, and there I agree, but the shows by themselves will have major marketing values (just see how often clips are repeated when YouTuber’s analyze what was presented)
Though I have to say that Steve’s presentations had a very different flavor. I know that he rehearsed too, that every detail was well planned and worked out and yet … you could feel that the man who presented this stood behind it all: the desire for perfect design, the desire to do something that changes things fundamentally, the fights he picked because they mattered to him. And there was a human factor there – it was not a puppet show. It was him standing on scene telling what he personally found was important.
In contrast, the current Apple shows just feel bland, sterile. Like each of the presenters has gone through a training course. You can swap them out against other speakers, and it would feel as good and bad.
And we get too many iterations of the same message. Instead of the three to four most important things that Steve selected, the listener is bombarded with tons of features, all seemingly equally important. And when you repeat “magically”, “never before”, “revolutionary” often enough it just becomes dull.
Apple is still super sleek, polished, with attention to detail and perfection. And no competition comes close enough to that. But it is has lost the raw drive listener’s sensed when Steve showed what he had worked on recently.
And I am looking forward to your analysis of the iMac presentation. To me it built too much on the original marketing: the colors (I love them – but the back more than the front – and that Apple is again more joyful, rather than gold and silver), the movement in the video presentations and even the style of the desktop backgrounds in the product images is so much MacOs9 from around the introduction of the original iMacs. That is too much “capitalizing on the feelings from back then”.
I agree with you completely. The products are still great, but the passion of the Apple keynote presenters is just as corporate from those of Microsoft.
I like to think of Steve’s presentations as punchy. Sure, you knew something was coming; he was gonna hit you; and you’d still take it—with a smile. I miss him.
And now to be a bit rough on the edges: boy, I’d hate to be married to this NYT writer. Talk about life-sucking.