What marketing techniques can we learn from the iPhone launch 10 years ago?

A few days ago, I overheard people chatting next to me in a cafe. Judging from the content of the conversation, they should be an entrepreneur and an investor .

If you often go to coffee shops, you must be familiar with their conversation routine - they like to bring up some celebrities, then praise them in various ways, and use this to convey a message to the other party - in the future, I will be as successful as them.

However, this time they were not talking about the popular Elon Musk , nor Jack Ma , nor Xu Jiayin, but a name I hadn’t heard in a cafe for a long time - Steve Jobs .

As for how they specifically praised Jobs, I won't go into details, but you should be able to guess it pretty closely.

However, I was also subtly influenced by their passionate speeches. As soon as I got home that night, I "unconsciously" searched for the video of the first iPhone launch conference on my computer...

That was a video from 10 years ago, and it has been about 4 or 5 years since I last watched it.

When I first saw it, I was still studying design, and like many people, I was deeply moved by Jobs' spirit of pursuing the "ultimate product".

But this time, my focus is no longer on “how to create new products” but “ how to introduce new products ”.

It has to be said that in addition to his first-class skills in creating the products themselves, Jobs is also an expert in product marketing ( promotion ), and he is worthy of our imitation and learning again.

1. Analogy with familiar things

Even if you haven't watched the press conference video, I believe you must have heard about how Jobs defined the first generation of iPhone.

He did not directly say "a brand new smartphone", but rather "a large-screen iPod + a mobile phone + an Internet device".

Even when he later introduced the name "iPhone", he kept emphasizing:

An iPod, a phone. Are you getting it?

The trick here is to quickly establish cognition in people’s minds by comparing a new thing with something they are familiar with - iPod, mobile phones, and Internet devices were all things people were familiar with at the time, and when they were put together, they formed a new generation of “smartphone,” the iPhone.

Many people fall into the "knowledge trap" - thinking that if they understand something, others must also understand it.

The most typical example is that experts on the stage recite various abstract professional terms passionately, while ordinary people in the audience are always confused and can only sit there yawning.

It’s fine to use professional vocabulary to show off, but if it’s used for communication and marketing, it can be a disaster…

And here is another example that is very similar to the iPhone:

In the 1990s, the Center for Science in the Public Interest found that the saturated fat contained in a bucket of ordinary popcorn was almost twice the daily requirement of a normal person.

They hope to publicize this discovery so that more people can understand the dangers of popcorn (coconut oil).

So, they announced: "A bucket of popcorn contains 37 grams of saturated fat, while the normal person only needs 20 grams a day."

However, the public still did not react...

Yes, just think about it: most people are not nutritionists, and they actually have no idea about "37 grams of saturated fat".

When they hear “37 grams of saturated fat,” it’s like a 3-year-old hearing “5,000 yuan in tuition”—they don’t know what it means.

It was not until later that scientists came up with a clever idea and changed the propaganda information into the following passage, which instantly caused a sensation throughout the United States, and all mainstream media rushed to report it. For a time, popcorn seemed to have become the "public enemy of America."

What should we change it to?

Here it is: A medium serving of popcorn has more saturated fat than a bacon and eggs breakfast, a Big Mac and fries lunch, and a steak dinner with stuffing combined!

Then a visual demonstration was made on TV: (The following picture is for illustration only)

You see, isn’t this very similar to the routine of “iPhone=iPod+mobile phone+Internet device” - both use familiar things to make figurative analogies for new things.

Of course, this does not mean that every time you introduce a new thing or a new concept, you must use this "OO=XX+YY+ZZ" model.

Sometimes you can also make a more direct analogy, such as simply changing the name.

I saw such an example before in an article introducing copywriting skills.

It is about an e -commerce businessman who sells a kind of fruit called "Laoshan Apricot".

Laoshan Apricot, as the name suggests, is a local specialty.

Specialties generally have one characteristic: if they are not very well-known, no matter how delicious they are, outsiders will not be too interested in them, because they have no idea what "Laoshan" is.

In this case, no matter how much effort you put into promoting "authenticity", it will not have any effect. (Unless Laoshan is as famous as Mount Everest)

And the friend who runs an e-commerce business was very clever - he did not take the time to explain what "Laoshan apricot" was, but directly changed the name from "Laoshan apricot" to "Shuimi apricot".

Many people may not know "Laoshan", but everyone has heard of "Peach" and has eaten it!

Moreover, when people mention "peaches", they immediately think of its sweet and juicy taste - this also brings out the advantages and characteristics of the product (Laoshan apricot).

So, if you are a "new product", whether it is the name, slogan, copywriting or even behavior, you can try to establish connections with things that people are familiar with, so as to quickly build awareness.

Including the " entrepreneurs and investors " mentioned above, why are they so keen on talking about those well-known celebrities?

In essence, this is still about associating yourself with a celebrity so that the other person can quickly understand you - "Oh, this person (may) have similar qualities or characteristics to XX."

2. Position your competitors

Let’s talk about the iPhone launch conference.

When Jobs started introducing the iPhone, he did not directly introduce the iPhone itself, but first introduced several mobile phones from other companies. (That is, what Lei Jun calls "products of friendly competitors")

What impressed me most was the chart he showed:

Everyone is talking about "positioning", so what is "positioning"?

This is called positioning!

I think there is no better example than this picture that embodies the essence of positioning theory (one of them) - by establishing a position for competitors (not smart, not easy to use) , thereby showing one's own advantages (smart, easy to use).

To put it in plain language, it means: "They are all like that, and I am like this."

It should be noted that the key to this picture is not to draw a coordinate axis, but to choose the right "field".

The reason why Jobs chose "intelligence and ease of use" as the standard for measuring mobile phones is because other mobile phones have almost never considered this point (or this standard is not objective) - it is the difference between "having" and "not having".

If he had chosen, say, “screen size” as a metric, that would have been much less useful, even though the iPhone’s screen is indeed much larger — the difference between “good” and “better.”

To develop a clear mental niche, you have to be different, not better . No one can remember the second person to walk on the moon.

(PS, if you really want to remember, his name is Aldrin)

Throughout history, there are countless cases of success through “repositioning competitors”. The one that impressed me the most is Procter & Gamble’s Scope mouthwash.

Scope is a brand new mouthwash. Compared with other mouthwashes, its biggest feature is that it tastes better.

In order to highlight its own advantages, it used only two words to completely destroy the impression of Listerine (the leading brand at the time), which had the title of "King of Bad Breath Removers" in people's minds.

"Medicinal taste".

Then it quickly took the second place in the market, almost on par with Listerine.

Speaking of this, I have actually been thinking:

Jiaduobao has always claimed that it has the function of "preventing heat", but is this positioning really very solid? If a new drink is launched and continues to focus on its function of "preventing getting angry", is it definitely a failure?

Everyone knows that whether it is Jiaduobao or Wanglaoji , their recipes contain "white sugar", and they must have put a lot of it, otherwise how could it be so sweet...

Can a new "anti-heat-inducing" beverage take advantage of this feature of "Gia Duo Bao" and position them as "sugar water" and then launch a targeted slogan - do you really think that drinking a can of sugar water will not make you afraid of getting a fever?

(Of course, one of the prerequisites for the success of this plan is that people’s demand for “preventing getting angry” is real and huge)

3. In fact, the principle is the same

In fact, whether it is "analogy with familiar things" or "positioning competitors", they are essentially similar - taking advantage of people's "existing" cognition.

The only difference is that the former means “I am as good as XX”, while the latter means “I am not as bad as YY”.

If a picture can summarize it, it is:

Note: XX and YY are both "existing" cognitions

So why are these two methods so effective?

This is because the human brain has two characteristics: 1. Small storage space 2. Strong compression ability

1) Small storage space

Although the brain, like a computer, has the function of "storing information", compared with a computer, the human brain can only store about 1G of information; while a computer can easily reach hundreds of G.

This means that we cannot cram too much "strange" information into our brains.

For example, the iPhone, 37 grams of saturated fat, Laoshan apricots, and Scope mouthwash mentioned above are all unfamiliar information to most people.

2) Super strong compression and decompression capabilities

IBM once used the Sequoia supercomputer to simulate the human brain's operations in order to test its speed. In the end, it still lost to the normal human brain, with the speed difference between the two being thousands of times.

So why can our brains have such fast computing speeds despite having such a small storage space?

This is because the brain has super compression capabilities - it can compress a photo with tens of millions of pixels (such as the picture seen by the naked eye) into a size of only a few bytes.

And when we need to call up this photo, we can "lossily" restore the various information at that time based on these bytes. (This process is what we often call "brain supplement")

The “new product” we mentioned before is actually equivalent to the “photo” here; and the “existing knowledge” refers to the “several bytes” here, or more precisely, the “several bytes that have been compressed.”

It is worth noting that the process of human compressing "photos" is actually a process of cognitive classification, which is very brain-consuming. Otherwise, why do so many people hate studying?

But it’s different with imagination, anyone can easily “take it for granted”…

Therefore, if you want others to accept new information, don't ask them to "compress" it. Instead, just ask them to fill in the blanks based on the existing information. This is much easier.

• Laoshan apricots taste very good, just like peaches. Now imagine for yourself how soft and sweet the taste is;
• The Nokia phone that you often use has a negative level of intelligence, while the iPhone has a positive level. Now imagine for yourself how smart the iPhone is.
• Next time you use Listerine mouthwash, you will definitely remember (brain supplement): there is a brand called Scope, which calls this taste "medicine taste"...

Of course, as mentioned above, the process of imagination is destructive.

Therefore, it loses some accuracy.

For example, the iPhone is not just an iPod + mobile phone + Internet device, it has other functions; and the taste of Laoshan apricots is definitely different from that of peaches...

However, this is not a big problem.

Because in most cases, when a new product is launched, the most important thing is to “quickly establish awareness” rather than “accurately establish awareness”.

The author of this article @品牌圈圈小云兄 is compiled and published by (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!

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