Articles about Marketing

The first new iPhone reviews are in, and there is increasing buzz about how 5s supplies will be greatly limited, as in "severely constrained". Something everyone should keep in mind about iPhone 5s availability. There is huge, as in humongous gigantic, benefit to Apple.

In business perception is everything, and supply shortages generate blogs and news stories and the appearance that the product is super hot-in-demand. No preorders and buzz about coming supply shortages should get people to stores, standing in line -- a phenom not really seen since iPhone 4. Waiting lines -- longer the better -- create perception a product is wanted and result in more blogs, news stories and social network shares.

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I am apprehensive about Googorola's choice to launch Moto X with AT&T -- the carrier that failed with HTC First (Facebook phone), like Verizon Wireless with Microsoft Kin, which were targeted at similar audiences. My concern: Death in childbirth. A device so different, in terms of responsiveness, must be experienced by many people fast to build excitement and demand.

In business and marketing perception is everything. Negative perception, or lack of any at all, can kill Moto X. Motorola's top priority should be fast sales and building social media buzz around touchless and personalization benefits. I don't see either coming from the exclusives given to AT&T.

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The magic is gone. As recently as mid-2012, rumors of a new iPhone was command performance -- bloggers and social networkers rushed every little bit of spec speculation to the web. A year later, has-beens are kings. Buzz belongs to the once high and mighty: HTC, Motorola, Nokia and Sony, each a former market-share commander. These companies are all something Apple, and even Samsung, is not: Hungry. Pride goes before the fall, they say. Pride brought down the big four (five, including BlackBerry), as their execs laughed off iPhone's launch in June 2007. They laugh again, as their companies bring truly innovative mobiles to market and Apple acts much as they did six years ago.

The fruit-logo company has a huge problem that is core to future competition. For nearly a decade, Apple benefitted from free-marketing, as enthusiast tech bloggers and reporters and over-eager Wall Street analysts and investors fanned the smallest flicker of rumor into raging fire. Now Android rises, like one of those robots in "Pacific Rim", to crush the iPhone monster. Meanwhile, Apple's humbled stock price gets less bang from rumors. CEO Tim Cook signaled three months ago that new "innovations" won't come until autumn -- and there are no leaks to rally the faithful against the horde of Android and Windows Phone infidels. The problem isn't bleeding market share -- a circumstance in most every market outside the United States -- but one of bleeding mindshare.

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I'm not saying Windows 8 is directly bad for your health -- but it can indirectly lead to lung cancer and countless other diseases. It can also indirectly get you addicted to a particular drug -- nicotine. How is this happening? Through Windows 8 in-app advertising.

As many of you know, I recently made the switch to Windows 8 -- for which I paid for the privilege. Paying for an operating system is unlike the very capable and robust Linux Mint, which is absolutely f

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Despite the almost laughable nature of the Scroogled campaign, Microsoft continues to push it. The company slams Gmail, but that is not enough. Jake Zborowski, senior product manager for Microsoft Office, releases not one, but two blog posts that attack Google Docs. Both are accompanied by ads -- low resolution videos that view like someone pulled them from the cutting-room floor.

"Converting Office files into Google Apps is a gamble" Zborowski claims in one post. "Why take the gamble on converting your Office files to Google Docs when you can use Microsoft Office and the Microsoft Office Web Apps to create, share and edit your Office files with your content intact", he explains. A new casino-themed ad accompanies the post and features B-list celebrities Rob Schneider and Pete Rose.

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There’s more than one way to advertise a product and while I am a big fan of the approach that specifically focuses on features, I understand there is a need for other approaches. Sometimes you just need to go for the pure emotional response. In the case of the ads released by Microsoft today which focus on the Asian market that seems to be what they were going for. Take a look.

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Regular readers know that I'm a sucker for good advertising. Audi's "The Challenge" is classic, pitting the new and old Spocks (Leonard Nimoy and Zachary Quinto) against each other. Surely the geeks, especially old-timers like me, will appreciate the inside-Star Trek humor. If you're a Trek fan of long vintage, the video is a treat.

I laughed when Nimoy started singing the Bilbo Baggins song. I actually owned that album in high school. William Shatner (aka James T. Kirk) and Nimoy both released records during the 1970s, when Star Trek was in syndication and before the series' revival on TV and movie theater screens. Geeks and Trekkers, this commercial will be among the best two minutes forty-five seconds you'll spend today.

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Bing has released its latest "Bing it on" challenge, a contest launched back in September 2012, and, along with that, comes new TV ads. As has become the M.O., Microsoft is going directly after the largest fish in the search sea -- Google. This time, Microsoft hits directly at the heart of Google -- Google, Kansas that is.

You may recall, back during the race to become the city which would receive Google Fiber, Topeka, Kansas changed its name to Google, Kansas. For that reason, Microsoft chose this as its attack venue for the new challenge and ad filming.

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I have a question for you? Is 24-month financing the same as 2-year contract for service? Washington State attorney general believes so. He calls T-Mobile's "no contract" plans deceptive. Last week, the carrier agreed to making changes, paying court fees and offering customers refunds on phones purchased between March 26 and April 25.

About 45 minutes ago, I got email from T-Mobile offering full refunds on devices purchased during the time period (that would be iPhone 5 for my daughter and father-in-law). I live in California, not Washington State, but T-Mobile is headquartered there. So the court order is farther-reaching, which is why I'm posting today.

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Honestly, gadget marketing doesn't get much better than this. Brilliant isn't strong enough to describe how fabulous and memorable is the new spot for Nokia Lumia 920. I showed the commercial to my wife, twice, and she laughed to tears both times -- and giggled for half an hour later.

If you watch nothing else today, make this video the one and only. I'm a sucker for good marketing, and this commercial works well on so many levels -- wedding setting, fanboyism and brilliant physical comedy -- I dare not dissect them and ruin the fun.

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Microsoft is in the process of pushing users to Outlook.com for web email services. The company purchased Hotmail back in 1997, largely ignored it, and then suddenly began updating the app right before deciding to unceremoniously replace it with Outlook.com back in July of 2012.

Now the company is in full push-mode to get users moved over and also try to woo new customers for the service. With that in mind, Microsoft has teamed up with the folks from the popular Mythbusters TV show to advertise Outlook.com and also push the brand new season of the show.

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For years, Tumblr CEO David Karp balked at running ads. But, hey, you can only run a free service on startup capital for so long. Karp caved in 2012, allowing sponsored posts on the website. Today Tumblr brings them to the mobile app. Click carefully.

The first one I see is for General Electronic. Surely there's some pithy wisecrack to be made about GE, because of "30 Rock" -- you know incorporating microwave ovens and other products into fictious "TGS with Tracy Jordan".

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The Taiwanese Fair Trade Commission is investigating allegations that Samsung representatives posted fake reviews of rival HTC’s products online. Allegations of dirty dealing come from whistle-blowing site taiwansamsungleaks.org, which posted documents it claims are from a third-party marketing agency employed by Samsung.

The documents reveal a raft of allegedly fake posts on popular Taiwanese gadget websites, prompting the leaks site to describe Samsung’s tactics as "evil". The company is accused of hiring students to post negative comments about HTC smartphones.

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Perhaps Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg are geeks of similar kind. Gates, along with buddy (and chief executive) Steve Ballmer, is known by us old-timers for a series of self-effacing videos spanning more than a decade -- many distributed internally or shown publicly at tech trade shows. Zuck is ignored -- gasp, is there a metaphor here -- in the first commercial for Facebook Home. The app is now available on Google Play.

While Zuckerberg introduces Home to Facebook employees, he is ignored by one using the Android skin. The video, which is posted to YouTube, had about 7,000 views when I peaked yesterday; the number is nearly a quarter-million today. The commercial spot is fun, festive and does what many of us wish we could do in a room: Ignore Zuck. Something so self-effacing makes him more human, too, less the geek or the privacy-invader critics call him. Put the CEO in more videos, I say.

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One measure of any brand's success is how much people talk about it. By that reckoning, Apple's star is fallen, while Samsung's rises. Consider the amount of rumors the past month or so about Galaxy S IV, which launches this week, and contrast that against near silence about anything Apple. Turn back the clock a year and you'll see modest buzz about the S3 but ongoing Apple rumors that stole the thunder from the Consumer Electronics Show, Mobile World Congress and just about every single new mobile product launch. (Yet this year, Apple efforts to overshadow CES failed.)

Then there was the noise, noise, noise from Apple's patent lawsuit against Samsung, which hundreds of bloggers and journalists used to repeatedly label the South Korean company the world's worst worrisome copycat. In the end Samsung's image is no worse for wear, while Apple rumors wear thin. The most prominent recent one is about a watch. For the wrist? What Citigroup analyst Oliver Chen calls a $6 billion business for Apple. Let me make that clear, because shorthand lacks the impact: $6,000,000,000! That's more than iPod generated in fiscal 2012 ($5.6 billion). Yeah, right.

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