Apple's marketing machine has done it again.While the biggest names in tech were in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show in January showing off new gadgets and gizmos, Apple gambled it could extract attention in San Francisco for a sneak-peek debut of the iPhone, the combination music player/cellphone and Internet device.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs' bet paid off like a gushing Vegas jackpot. The avalanche of headlines and TV news stories about the iPhone - which hits the market in June - already have generated $400 million in free publicity, says Harvard Business School professor David Yoffie. "No other company has ever received that kind of attention for a product launch," Yoffie says. "It's unprecedented."
Apple's arsenal of attention-getting tools holds lessons for any company: design cool, innovative products. Have a streamlined product line. Invest in memorable ads. Work your customer base to make customers feel special and create word-of-mouth agents. Most important: keep the world and media surprised, to generate gobs of attention.
The company's masterful buzz machine has helped generate record profits (thanks to the worldwide digital music cultural icon, the iPod), but it's barely nudged Apple's computer market share. Apple executives declined comment for this story.
Marketing guru Peter Sealey, a professor at Claremont Graduate University, calls the charismatic Jobs "the best marketing CEO in the business." USA TODAY spoke to professors such as Sealey, authors and former Apple marketing executives, asking what other companies could learn from the Apple marketing manual:
•Make innovative products. It sounds simple, but Apple's obsession with design and innovation, and history of inventing and designing products in-house (most tech competitors outsource), brings on the spotlight.
"People take notice because of Apple's track record," says Mike Evangelist, a former Apple product manager who now is CEO of digital music compression firm Wired. "They know the products will be groundbreaking."
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