The art of the product release is something that many companies still have trouble coming to grips with. We see this across several verticals. Media management and timing is arguably one of the most influential aspects of a campaign and can help to subtly influence the psyche of the consumer and positively or negatively affect the launch of a product.
We can also draw several parallels to event marketing as well. Timing truly is everything. The time that a product is announced should cover several bases. This includes ensuring that your message is targeted and the call to action is not only feasible, but likely. Everything from picking a time where you know your target audience is willing and able to listen to ensuring they are connected to you by means most conducive to react is highly important.
Attendance to an event may or may not be a concern. If the event details a product launch, it may not be as important, but there are still several other aspects to keep in mind. For instance – What are you doing to promote the product or service after the event? When will it be ready? What is the time between the announcement and release? Does the timing allow you to dominate the press or blogosphere or will you be overwhelmed by another announcement within your industry or vertical that takes precedent?
This touches on several aspects of marketing, both traditional and digital. Whether you’re looking at a retention strategy or outreach, it’s important that your timelines are conducive to a positive consumer experience and take advantage of the psychological effects of a quickly moving, high turnover market.
Apple has learned this very well. Like clock-work they release their updated devices. Everyone knows when to expect updates. Apple makes consumers wait 1 year for a new device or version and after a highly publicized press event, immediately begin to sell the device to take advantage of the excitement among consumers. When they don’t sell immediately, it’s been a relatively quick introduction into the market. If the device went on sale a week or two after the event, they’ve granted limited access to the device and increased it over the course of the interim period to garner and maintain excitement. The company does not wear the device out making it outdated by time it’s released. It promptly plays on the emotion and immediate reaction of consumers to purchase the devices.
Adversely, Motorola is not so good in this department. On September 5th, they had announced their devices ahead of Apple’s. This ensured Motorola’s dominance in the blogosphere, a great move on their part. By pre-cursing Apple’s release by 1 full week, this thoughtful timing allowed Motorola a dominant voice online and ensured they would not be overshadowed by another device on the market. This worked out very well, and Motorola (and Nokia too) enjoyed a full week or full press coverage throughout the web.
Many felt that Motorola did make a few mistakes. They offered consumers too many choices and diluted the attention that each could have gotten by increasing the quantity of their targets. They announced 3 devices. 2 of those are high end (and virtually the same) and 1 is a mid ranged device. They made the mid range device available immediately. The problem with this was that consumers already knew that a better version was on its way. Most consumers are waiting to see both to make a decision. This automatically hindered the immediate sales potential of the $99, Razr M.
Secondly, they didn’t announce a release date for the other two devices (which they should have tested and picked between, rather than releasing both). Motorola gave a vague ‘before the holidays’ answer when questioned about the release. This gives them a window of 3 months in which they can release their device without any further details. The event was anti-climatic. Giving the consumer the information required to make an educated decision is one of the first things they should have considered. The release date or approximate release date of the device is certainly one of those.
What were the consequences? Rather than competing with Apple, they let those with expiring cell phone contracts buy Apple first and left their device to be an after-thought. Nearly 4 weeks after the announcement, Motorola has yet to make the official announcement on its availability. To no one’s surprise, users are getting sick of waiting and are left out in the dark. With no timeline to adhere to, users have continued to buy Apple’s new device and not wait for Motorola to come through.
Weeks after its release, the Apple device is still very popular and still selling out at retail outlets across the country. On the other side, Motorola is now rumored to be dealing with an antenna issue on their new device that can delay the launch even further. The issue is similar to that of the one faced on the iPhone 4, dubbed ‘Antenna Gate’.
After the much publicized issue with the iPhone 4, surely Motorola should have known about this design probability and should have accounted for it prior to the announcement. This is a huge oversight and one that may delay the release of the product for a significant amount of time. The device was clearly not ready to be released when Motorola had their press event.
They chose to rush the conference to beat out Apple for press coverage and instead showed up to the game too early without something fit for market release. Even worse, Motorola has not displayed a strong strategy for keeping users engaged or interested in their products since its announcement. Seems like Motorola should look at Apple or Samsung to see how it’s done.
