Posted By
Digital Marketing Unfiltered on 07/28/2010
Ed: White Horse’s podcast series is
a great way to get the unvarnished truth about all your digital marketing
questions—listen to all of the episodes whenever you like. Below is Part 3 of a
recent three-part episode on the iPad. You can also read the previous posts of “Lust! Hype! Intrigue! The iPad Part 1
and Part 2. To have your question
featured on a podcast, please send your question to contactus@whitehorse.com
Ami:
I got to bring this up, and it's really distasteful, but I think you are all
skirting the issue about the iPad. It's the name! That's the reason why these
things never get to fly... [laughter]
Who
is going to want an iPad in their kitchen?
Eric:
We were going to let you go there first...
Ami:
I figured I'm in the minority, but please, it's embarrassing enough for a woman
to say it. How does it feel for you guys?
Brian:
Yeah, but you didn't say that about iTouch. iTouch what? Now it's an iPad? I
mean, you think about it, but, they could've changed the name. [crosstalk]
Eric:
My mind didn't go there instantly. It took a few people to point it out. A lot
of people have done mock ads for it and everything else. There is an actual ad,
a mock ad, from...what is it from, Mad TV?
Jamie:
From Mad TV.
Eric:
Yeah.
Jamie:
From 2006?
Eric:
From 2006. They actually mocked Apple with an iPad, where it's an iPad.
Brian:
Wow, they're front-runners there, aren't they?
Jamie:
With those black outlines of people on the colored backgrounds. Do you
remember? That ad series for the iPod, but this was the same at that time.
Brian:
And this is...
Eric:
Very tastefully done.
Eric:
You're planning this big roll-out. You want to sell 50 million of these devices,
and nobody does a Google search for the word iPad that might've turned up this
video?
Ami:
I think it's a nifty, nifty brand mark. I would like to see it in more women's
restrooms. [laughter] I think there is a market. I think it's displaced here.
Jamie:
I think the fascinating thing about, besides the name, was the buildup and the
hype within the Apple fanboy blogosphere in the industry in advance of the
announcement. So this thing has been talked about for years, that it was in
development, that it was being prototyped, and stuff. Of course, they're so
secretive about their product releases and what's really going to be in there,
but a lot of the blogs really had it right on. They had tipsters coming in feeding
them information. So I'm really interested in that piece of it, in terms of
their marketing strategy and launching the product.
This
is an investor... It's supposed to be an investor presentation, but it turns
out to be this big launching pad, where they gave some lip service at the
beginning to the fact that they're the biggest mobile company in the world,
which I thought was interesting positioning for them as a company. But they get
these people so foaming at the mouth about the new product that it almost
doesn't matter what their financial disclosures are, which is supposed to be
the point, right?
Brian:
Well, I think the big problem with this is that every other really great game-changing
device that Apple's put out has had, that this doesn't, when you look at what
happened when we came out with the iPod, MP3, new music format. Everyone loves
music. It's the fuel that propelled that into the fact that they were doing it
using new technology and doing it in a great industrial design way, user interface
way, everything that's super yummy about Apple, and why I love them.
iPhone.
Let's put everything in one convenient place. Like you said earlier, I don't
want to carry all this stuff around with me. The iPhone, it's got the ability
to do video. They put YouTube on it. It's got the telephone. I've got my email.
I've got all kinds of games that I can waste loads of time when I'm stuck in
the airport. Give it to my kid, when we're waiting for a doctor...
Craig:
You're going to have a phone with you anyway. You have to have a netbook with
you anyway.
Brian:
It's the fuel for... This doesn't have it. It's not even like what we have
Flash. There's a reason to have it and have things be bigger. Now… although,
even though I turned a certain age recently, and I need to see the optometrist,
the smaller foot print for an iPhone is killing us. So a bigger footprint for
something that you might use in your home, not mobile, might work. Hey, for $499
to get into Apple for their products and all the apps is a great price point.
Eric:
Yeah.
Brian:
It has a monitor on it. The cube, the mini didn't even have that. And if this
was out two years ago, I bet I would've bought this iPad for my mother-in-law
when I bought her the cube and an old crappy Dell monitor that she was using
from when I got rid of her PC.
Jamie:
[laughs]
Brian:
Which I did selfishly for my own good and tech support.
Eric:
Well, you mentioned the example of the iPod. I think the reason that the iPod
works, and I think the reason that any great device eventually gets the
adoption that it's looking for, is it like the deviceness of it falls away.
Like with an iPod, it's no longer about the iPod. It's about listening to
music. You don't think about the device itself. And I think it works the same way
with the iPhone because you’ve got to carry a phone with you anyway.
I
think it works that way with the Kindle, and that's something that they really
went for with the Kindle, is this idea it would be so much like actually
reading a book that eventually the deviceness of it would fall away and you're
just reading.
I
don't see that with the iPad. When you have to look for a reason to use it,
when you have to think of a way to use it a device, then...I don't think it is
forever that we don't use iPads, but I think it’s a long adoption cycle because
we can't think of a reason to use it.
Craig:
Right. There is nothing... [Crosstalk].
Brian:
...or a laptop.
Brian:
Oh, wait. I have one. Pac-Man. So you could do it like it felt like the old Pac-Man
game where you are sitting there... [crosstalk]
Eric:
The tables that they would have at the Pizza Hut where you would sit at the
table, I could see converting the iPad into like...
Craig:
And that is one of the big problems with the iPads, is that it rocks when it is
on a flat surface, and you want to touch it. So maybe they've got a nice flat
spot so kids could play Battleship on it or do something.
Jamie:
They totally had that air hockey app for the iPhone. It's actually a lot of
fun. You can control how much air is being pumped through it, and then you can
defend yourself.
Eric:
Really?
Jamie:
Yeah. It is a great little...It's a fun little game. So if you put that on the
iPad...
Craig:
Maybe that is the answer. Maybe it is board games.
Jamie:
You can actually play two players.
Craig:
Board games are the answer for the iPad.
Brian:
I think there is a huge family market for this thing the way that...That's
how... [crosstalk]
Craig:
Actually, I agree. I was going to say the scenario is I can really see because
I have kids, and we bought a ton of, not tons, but a lot of devices to keep
them entertained. I could see when we will have to have a netbook; buying that
and a keyboard and letting them have their own personal computer. They can then
download videos and have homework or whatever, and then take it in the car when
they have to go somewhere. Take it to their friends when they have an
overnight.
Eric:
I have an air hockey table at home, so I can see myself putting the iPad on the
air hockey table... [laughter]
...and
playing virtual air hockey.
[laughter]
It
is just the right height.
Jamie: It is so meta.
Ami:
You know, I look at this a little bit like travel with kids. Reverse correlation
between the amount of energy you would have to expend and the amount of
pleasure the parents experience. By that notion, I think there is a
distribution model for this product, but you need to buy it at Costco in packs
of four, then...
Eric:
Yeah.
Ami:
...otherwise, it is going to cause utter upheaval in any home.
Brian:
I can just see... [crosstalk]
Ami:
Multi-packs.
Brian:
...where one pulls it too hard, and it ends up on the ground.
Eric:
Honestly, I think that is why if this were a $200 device, we would be having a
totally different conversation right now, because for two hundred bucks, we'd
all find things to do with it, but not for five hundred.
Craig:
And the accessories. As you know, you are going to want the keyboard and the
stand to hold it up.
Brian:
I actually thought the price part was decent for what it was, considering if
you factor in monitor, CPU, access to the Net, iPod capabilities, and stuff you
might have. Any Apple product that has come out, the thing that still annoys me
to this day is when they came out with the mice that were round and it was
like...I didn't understand. Did someone have a cousin in Apple who did those
plastic pieces that everyone clipped on so they didn't have to use that round
mouse?
[laughter]
It
always spurs on like a whole other cottage industry for things to accessorize
with. I think we shouldn't have to do it.
[crosstalk]
Eric:
The problem with the price is people who are looking at it, compared to a netbook,
the netbook has got a lot more memory, more features, it's got a camera,
everything in it. It is three hundred bucks. Or you are looking at an e-reader.
An e-reader is going to be two hundred or three hundred bucks, so it's hard. Back
to what I think was Jamie's original point, that this is a fanboy device at
this point, because a fanboy is going to pay that kind of price.
Jamie:
This is historical for Apple, except for its iPhone. If you look at it, all of
their products are very small niche markets, somebody who is very dedicated to
their audience, so maybe that is all they need from that standpoint. The other
thing is that music with the iPod like this is in some ways a really big
content play. It is wanting to have ownership over the reader’s' space, but
also driving more traffic to the apps store. If they don't have Flash, you have
to download through iTunes store...the movies and all of that. And so, this
just pushes them into that channel.
Eric:
That's true. Yeah.
Brian:
I agree. It is one way to get the door open, not to mention it gets people introduced
to an Apple product who never have been. And that's really been the game plan
for the last six years is, "Whoa, How do we get people to look at Apple
who have been on PCs for their whole life?"
Speaker:
Thank you for joining us for Digital Marketing Unfiltered. If you enjoyed our
banter, you can access this podcast series on our Web site at www.whitehorse.com , or send your
questions, comments, or content ideas to contactus@whitehorse.com.
Part 1 | Part 2
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