Larry Bellehumeur

When To 'Believe the Hype' of a New Product

Hello everyone...

I wanted to reinforce the fact that I am ABSOLUTELY NOT criticizing Apple. Their ability to create Buzz, Hype or excitement (however you wished to call it) is one of the incredible reasons for their success. While there may be some great technology to their products, it isn't the technology that makes people line up for hours.....

This implies whether they are actually intentionally creating the buzz/hype/excitement themselves or whether it is just the media (I found your comment on the iToaster funny, by the way). I listened to a great interview with an Analyst on Bloomberg where he referred to Apple as the "Media-Masters". Creating hype for your product is not a negative thing on its own, it is only negative if you constantly develop products that do not live up to such hype. Apple is not one of those companies. The iPod is a fabulous piece of technology, as is the Mac product line (I own about 5 or 6 Apple devices in my house, thanks to my wife and child.). Haven't tried the iPhone, so I can't comment there.

The purpose of the article was to touch on the idea about how Investors can play "hype" to their advantage.

Again, many thanks for taking the time to read my article, and for your comments.

Cheers and thanks
Larry

When To 'Believe the Hype' of a New Product

250541 -- Perhaps you are correct in your word descriptions. I guess I don't differentiate the two as much as you do. I was in Marketing at a Carrier for years, and we referred to the whole experience (what we did, and the eventual reaction) as Hype.

To reiterate what I said earlier, my point wasn't to focus in on Apple, only to use them as an example. It just seems that when you use the word "Apple" in your work, people disregard everything else and get defensive.

Thanks for taking the time to read and to comment!
Larry

When To 'Believe the Hype' of a New Product

Texasgolfer -- thanks for your note.

I know of a stronger challenge in Canada, with Comwave's main product (like Cisco, also a VoIP product), where it dragged out for much longer and was much more of a threat to Apple's launch of the iPhone. The Cisco one seemed to be settled quickly, as I recall.

Doubt that was an intentional part of Apple's plan, but I am sure that they enjoyed the free press!

I just wanted to point out that the purpose of the article was not to slam Apple......I think they did a miraculous job, in fact, and I say so in the article. People seem to become extremely defensive about this company when they sense (incorrectly in this case, I might add) that someone may be saying something bad against it. The purpose of the article was to examine whether product (and more importantly, Sales and Earnings from the product) live up to the hype and how investors might gain for it. It wasn't meant to be a forum on Apple, but it appears that it may have become so...

I guess like Apple's legal challenges, it doesn't matter why people read, as long as they read....=)

Larry

When To 'Believe the Hype' of a New Product

TanToday -- Thanks for your comment. I appreciate all comments, even those with differing opinion than my own.

Interesting that you say that Apple did nothing.....why is it that they pre-announced the product months in advance of launch? Why is it that they gave pictures, brochures, marketing material, FAQ answers to the carriers months before they launched (I know, as I have contacts at AT&T and Rogers who have them)? Everyone knew exactly what the iPhone was about long before it ever hit the stores.....that is EXACTLY what pre-launch hype is.

I encourage you to check out this article:
www.nielsenbuzzmetrics...

It shows:
- Apple informed the world of the iPhone in January 2007, despite the fact that it was launching in June 2007
- Quote from this web page, "“Apple’s iPhone is riding an unprecedented wave of pre-launch conversation and expectations are mounting,” said John Latona, Vice President of Client Services, Consumer Technology, at Nielsen BuzzMetrics. “Starting next week, the nature of the conversation will shift to very explicit and descriptive commentary about actual experiences with the product, and this will have a huge impact on ongoing trial, advocacy and sales.”
- Stats from the same web page: Traffic to the official corporate site, apple.com, spiked following the iPhone announcement. According to Nielsen//NetRatings, the iPhone section of the site had 1.79+ million unique visitors in January 2007 and the keyword “iPhone” was searched 870,000 times. Consumers continued to visit the site during February and March frequently, with more than 980,000 unique visitors per month, with a slight decline during April (almost 637,000 unique visitors). Web traffic to the site increased again during May with more than 701,000 unique visitors a month prior to release.

Maybe Apple didn't fully intend to have this kind of publicity, but you can't honestly tell me that this product didn't launch with perhaps the biggest hype of any new product in recent memory?

Cheers
Larry