Master of the Hype Universe

In the ultimate mixture of celebrity, shameless commercial and self-promotion with a dash … no, make that a veneer of journalism, TIME Magazine helps to hype Apple’s hype of its iPad through a story by British actor/comedian Stephen Fry that gushes praise for Apple’s CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs. Who’d I leave out?

TIME – a journalistic relic from a bygone era – needs such cover stories. The magazine’s page count is a fraction of what it was a few years ago as advertisers have streamed to online media. The TIME cover is not so much about the story as it is the near-desperate publicity for the old magazine. For Apple, the piece is an advertorial for the iPad.

From a journalistic perspective, the story by Fry is light-weight. He describes nearly wetting his pants with excitement over meeting Jobs:

I have met five British Prime Ministers, two American Presidents, Nelson Mandela, Michael Jackson and the Queen. My hour with Steve Jobs certainly made me more nervous than any of those encounters. I know what you are thinking, but it’s the truth. I do believe Jobs to be a truly great figure, one of the small group of innovators who have changed the world. He exists somewhere between showman, perfectionist overseer, visionary, enthusiast and opportunist, and his insistence upon design, detail, finish, quality, ease of use and reliability are a huge part of Apple’s success.

In the context, however, of Apple’s masterful and strategically driven advance hype of the iPad, the TIME cover is nothing compared to the enormous and powerful influence of the glowing review for the iPad this week by Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal. Walt’s thumbs up sells product:

My verdict is that, while it has compromises and drawbacks, the iPad can indeed replace a laptop for most data communication, content consumption and even limited content creation, a lot of the time.

Here’s the point I want to make … while many if not most other companies continue talking incessantly about themselves through PR, marketing and advertising, Apple once again subtly shifts attention to you, the consumer, and achieves both emotional and factual reasons why your life will benefit by having its new product … in this case, the iPad. Apple is using the same strategic approach as it used with the iPhone, MacBook, iPod and all other products … it’s about you.

Apple is one of those rare companies that understands how to connect with its audiences on emotional and analytical levels and delivers what amounts to third-party validation of reasons why we need to buy the company’s latest device. Comprehending this primal dynamic of human behavior is not rocket science although most other companies have yet to stop talking about themselves long enough to discover this basic fact of selling success in today’s world.

Apple has $25-Billion in cash reserves socked away … you’d think more companies would start paying attention to its formula for winning.

Category: Brand Journalism, Featured