Apple Watch: Behind Imagined Doors
Cupertino, CA (Early 2014)
Setting: A conference room at Apple headquarters where members of the vaunted company’s marketing communications team have gathered to map out a strategy to launch the much-anticipated Apple Watch.
PR executive 1: We must make this as bug as anything we‘ve launched in the last five years. We’ll all be looking for work if we don’t exceed the noise we made to launch the iPhone 5S!
PR executive 2: I’m concerned. The Watch doesn’t have, dare I say, that one really cool, gee-whiz utility to set the hype machine on full throttle. The technology is just not there yet.
PR executive 1: Still, it’s beautiful! It may be Jony Ive’s masterpiece, his time pièce de résistance!
PR executive 2: But Apple fan boys expect more than aesthetics. They expect Dick Tracy, Mr. Spock and Captain Kirk all rolled into one. Anything short of “beam me up” may not satisfy.
PR executive 1: Wait! I’m having an epiphany. This watch may not be designed for the fan boys, but it sure will wow the fashionistas, the style-makers!
PR executive 2: I think you’re onto something. Forget TechCrunch, Mashable and TheVerge. Let’s break it big in…Vogue!
Marketing executive: Fabulous idea. I’m sure I can parlay a major ad buy into some really decent editorial.
PR executive 1: And if we give Vogue the exclusive first look, we’re almost assured fawning coverage.
PR executive 2: Which could very well set the toney tone we’re looking for.
PR executive 1: It still may not be enough. Vogue is just a single voice in a vast sea of style-making media. Granted it’s influential, but it alone no longer drives the style agenda. We will need to go big. I say a boffo presser is still in order here. We can’t leave the fan boys high and dry. They’d expect no less.
PR executive 2: You’re right. And we’re Apple. Anything we do will draw a gaggle of tech scribes. We now just have to manage the message.
Marketing executive: I love it. It all sounds so do-able. I’ll bring it to Phil to get his buy-in.
Many months later:
Originally published at flatironcomm.com on March 2, 2015.
