Author and technology strategist Michael Gartenberg just posted a piece on Engadget, Entelligence: Lessons from the iPad launch. Reaction to the device has been all over the place hasn’t it? And there have been no end to the articles and posts detailing and expressing those reactions.
Michael’s is a little different though. He’s picked up on two very salient points about the launch and the device. Studying both might help you as you work on your marketing and telling your stories.
The first is this: “While Apple didn’t create this category of device, it did answer the fundamental question of why this form factor needs to exist. The meta lesson is that the story told is as important as the hardware, software and services being sold…”
Apple is entering a market where there are many competitors, me too’s if you will. Do they try to differentiate on hardware? Software? Services? Some, but they know that won’t work. What do they do to differentiate? Tell a better story!
The second one is this: “Vendors competing with Apple in this space are going to need to understand these lessons and in many cases change not only their current products, but the story they tell.”
How can the other vendors in the space compete? Better hardware? Software? Services? Better understanding of the ecosystem? Sure, all of that will help. But what will really matter is the story they tell. Will they invite us in? Try to form an emotional connection?
If you’re in a market that’s crowded with a lot of me too’s, how do you differentiate your company and your product? Have you been focusing on features and benefits? How’s that working out for you? If it isn’t, maybe you might want to take a page from the marketing machine that is Apple and work on your story, on forming those emotional connections with your community.
