‘You need a Smart Watch. And you need it now!’

— Apple

During a restaurant opening, a restaurateur typically ensures there is enough hype to keep the opening night and next few weeks booked. Entrepreneurs spend enough time on upfront creative marketing (to deliver a runaway success) as pondering long-term profitability.

In India, I have seen such glitz and glamor when new jewellery businesses open. Film stars and celebrities draw enough crowds to ensure a sense of positivity and aspiration to buy the product.

This week, the venerable Apple proved it was no exception to this thinking.

Their entrepreneurial worries on starting a new line of business like Apple Watch are understandable. Ensuring customers didn’t just ponder over the watch; rather they bought it. Well, Apple’s marketing team perhaps played a pivotal role in order to ensure demand definitely outstripped supply. Apple took the concept of people camping outside its stores days before any product launch and decided to channelize it for building enough hype around Apple Watch.

To the customers, Apple solved their problem of lining outside stores. To Apple, it meant building a huge line up of backlog orders online.

A win-win situation for all.

Apple loyalists ordered the watch anyway, while the rest got hooked to the hype.

The result — shipping has now moved to July. I am also reminded of all news articles that called the Apple Watch a fancy device, a fashion statement and an indulgence at best. Going by the backlog of orders, well, Apple doesn’t really care I am sure. In China, the Apple Edition (18 Carat Gold) costing nearly $20,000 got sold out in less than an hour. Apple Watch Day 1 pre-orders are expected to be 1 million units

If there is one other thing that Apple has successfully achieved, it is bringing attention to the word ‘Smart Watch’. No other brand has ever had this kind of success on unleashing a sudden need for a smart watch. Brands like Garmin have long been offering these features. And hey, you don’t even need to charge the watch everyday. But we have to give it to Apple for generating the ‘need’ for one such device. That is smart marketing. In fact, a recent study by InMobi showed that 51% of the respondents preferred to pick up a smart watch among any other wearable device.

Come 2016, you and I would mostly be talking more through our watches than our phones.