Apple Inc: Best Product Launch Company Of The Decade
By Anna Johnson on April 13th, 2010Think of the most anticipated, most publicized and most successful product launches of the last decade and you’ll probably come up with three products that start with ‘i’: iPod, iPhone and iPad.
With three massive home runs to its credit, Apple Inc. is conceivably the most successful company to launch technology products, perhaps products overall, in the last decade.
To give you an idea of just how successful Apple’s iPod, iPhone and iPad launches have been, here are some numbers:
1. iPod
Apple announced the iPod – a digital music player with 5 GB storage capacity (enough for over 1,000 songs) at a price of $399 on October 23, 2001. A few weeks later, on November 10, 2001 the company began shipping its first iPods. By December 31, 2001 Apple had sold a total of 125,000 iPods.
2. iPhone
Apple announced the iPhone – its smart phone and multimedia device in one – on January 9, 2007, then released it for sale in the United States on June 29, 2007 at a cost of $499 (with 4 GB storage) or $599 (8 GB storage). By September 10, 2007 – 74 days after the launch – Apple had sold one million iPhones.
3. iPad
Apple announced the iPad – a tablet computer and multimedia device – on January 27, 2010 and released it for sale on April 3, 2010. With prices ranging from $499 (an iPad with 16 GB storage) to $829 (64 GB storage), within 24 hours the company had sold over 300,000 iPads.
So what are the keys to Apple’s success in launching products that Internet marketers and other entrepreneurs can learn from and apply? Here are 6 keys to Apple’s phenomenal product launch success:
1. Have an awesome product
Let’s face it, the iPod, iPhone and iPad are awesome products. Interestingly, they have never been the first of their kind. The iPod wasn’t the first MP3 player released, the iPhone was certainly not the first smartphone, and the iPad is not the first tablet computer.
In each category, however, Apple has released products that have been significantly better than the competition in ways that have mattered most to consumers.
Apple has never done anything more than found gaps in the market and filled those gaps. It’s just that such gaps haven’t necessarily been obvious to either competitors or consumers.
For example, consumers weren’t necessarily crying out for a digital audio player with a click-wheel (i.e. the first iPod) back in 2001. The fact that consumers flocked to the iPod indicates, however, that beautiful, intuitive design was, and is, a CRITICAL part of what people want from a mobile device.
Great design is something Apple has always prided itself on in its range of personal computers, and the company has applied the same focus on design in developing its iPod, iPhone and iPad.
Apple also understands that design is way more than how a device looks. Good design is built into the functionality and usability of its products, which has also served to delight Apple’s customers. And, of course, Apple has also created products with great functionality that give people what they want.
Having a track record building awesome products has only helped Apple’s successive product launches. As you can see from the above statistics, with each of these launches, the company sold exponentially more units in less time. A lot of that is due to people being extremely satisfied and impressed with their existing Apple products and trusting that Apple’s next product will be just as good, if not better.
2. Build anticipation
Prior to officially launching the iPod, iPhone and iPad respectively, Apple started, encouraged or, at least, allowed rumors to spread about its plans to build the given device.
We saw this most recently with the company’s launch of the iPad. As far back as a year ago, speculation began about Apple creating a tablet computer. Such early speculation fostered anticipation, making the media, consumers and public even more interested in, and alert to, Apple’s activities.
3. Have a big, splashy announcement
Apple has mastered the art of the product announcement. Once a swirl of speculation and anticipation is in place, Apple’s next step has been to announce the product launch. And no-one has been better qualified to do this than Apple’s chief evangelist and CEO in one, Steve Jobs.
Whilst Steve Jobs’ announcement of the first iPod was a relatively low-key announcement at an Apple music event in 2001, his announcement of the iPhone at MacWorld 2007, and of the iPad at a live press conference earlier this year, were impressive affairs.
Again, this is probably because, since the iPod launch in 2001, the company’s hugely successful forays into smartphones and digital media have paved the way for successively bigger announcements to an even hungrier audience.
4. Harness the media
As the exhaustive media coverage of the recent iPad release indicates, Apple knows how to harness the media. Whilst I can only guess that the Apple PR machine has people reaching out to key technology journalists and influencers at every level, one thing to note is how active and hands-on is the company’s leader, Steve Jobs, in visibly leading the PR effort.
Having the CEO exude such enormous energy, enthusiasm and passion for a new product launch cannot help but inspire confidence and excitement in that product, and because of Steve Jobs’ own legendary status, this only further fuels the media and public frenzy.
What baffles me is why more corporate CEOs don’t do what Steve Jobs does, and how rarely we see CEOs actively and visibly drive the media charge when launching new products.
Sure, some CEOs may be shy… some companies may launch new products all the time… but I can’t help but think that if more CEOs got out of the board room and into the show room, they’d inspire much more confidence in, and enthusiasm for, their companies’ products.
5. Limit supply at launch
Nothing stirs up a hungry market more than the idea that there may be limited supply of the product they want. Whilst Apple is in the business of selling its products day in, day out, it still builds scarcity into its product launches by, indeed, limiting the supply of units available on launch day.
Part – or even a lot – of this may be due to the practicalities of manufacturing and distributing a hardware device into retail stores and of estimating initial product demand. But it certainly doesn’t hurt to have such launch day stories as long queues of customers waiting to buy the first available iPods, iPhones or iPads, or of selling out on launch day.
6. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts
Something to note from the five foregoing keys to Apple’s product launch success is how synergistic these keys are. In other words, the overall impact of implementing each of these five measures is far greater than each on its own. And that’s really the sixth key to Apple’s product launch success: it does each of these things really well, with the result that success in one area causes success in another area.
You may not agree with me dubbing Apple Inc. the product launch company of the decade. If not… tell me why. Who else would you give the title to and why? And, more importantly, what can other entrepreneurs learn from their success?
