"Everything is possible to him who believes." Mark 9:23

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Learning from the letdown

I just got an iPhone 4 this summer and fell in love with everything about the phone. It has been great having my email, Facebook and Twitter all at my fingertips. When I heard the news that Apple was going to be announcing the new iPhone 5, I got butterflies in my stomach and began dreaming of pretty iPhones. However, the day of the big reveal, I was a bit disappointed. I didn't think the new iPhone 5 was anything special or memorable. What I did find interesting though, was something we could all take away from the iPhone 5 unveiling. PR Daily journalist, Michael Sebastian posted "5 PR lessons from the iPhone unveiling," which I found to be useful.
Photo is courtesy of Techno Buffalo

1. Make sure your executives are well trained- even if your product is a killer
2. Numbers remain powerful
3. Pay attention to sound bites
4. Show, don't tell
5. Maintain realistic expectations

The fourth lesson stood out to me the most. I am a very visual person, and I believe much of my generation are visual learners. Older generations are geared towards numbers and facts, whereas the Millennials are more interested in seeing the progress or changes through pictures. During the iPhone 5 reveal, Phil Schiller, Apple's marketing chief, showed off the phone itself and the various new features. PR Daily used the example of the fantastic new pictures the iPhone 5 will take. It was better for Schiller to show pictures actually taken with the phone rather than say that the phone will have 28 megapixels.

Altogether, these five lessons could be very useful to any public relations professional. The lessons are short and to the point. No fluff, nothing special or fancy; just five lessons learned from Apple's over-hyped iPhone 5 reveal.

3 comments:

  1. I completely agree. You can tell me all the facts about the new phone but I don't really grasp any of them until I see them demonstrated. When they show the picture of the new phone I can't even tell the differences until I see it compared to an iPhone 4. I'm a visual learner for sure.

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  2. Melissa I think that the iPhone unveiling was a great example to use. You are not alone in your feeling of disappointment. I myself don't really care because I don't have an iPhone, but I do think that we can learn valuable lessons from the event. I do agree that our generation are mostly visual learners, I know that I am. I do think Apple does a good job of showing the public the new model and all of its new features.

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  3. Showing, not telling is a great lesson to take from the iPhone reveal. What really gets me is that when people think of Apple, they think high quality and up-to-date. I just find it ironic that their technology is up-to-date, but it seems they're not in the times with some of their PR.

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