The Apple Tablet: Don’t Ignore the Hype

by Chris Paradysz | January 26, 2010 4:01 pm

What Apple’s latest announcement means to marketers.

Tomorrow is a huge day in our lives as marketers. I’m taking a not-so-wild shot at this not because I love Apple products (I don’t) but because their ability to transform entire industries by re-thinking how people want to live their lives is stunning. Apple’s new tablet product will be launched and, with it, the typical hype and expectations are at a fever pitch. And, they should be. Although the Kindle from Amazon was a game-changer for the content industry, it hasn’t really changed the lives of marketers as Apple’s launch will.

The new Apple product will be far more than a device. It will integrate multiple forms of content into a single destination and do what all of us have wished for since we started buying cellphones and computers for personal use. Voice, music, video, print, data, calendars and phone are all going to be experienced through this technology.

What does this mean for PM Digital clients and marketers overall? It most definitely is going to accelerate the opportunities and challenges for the content business, and not just the printed word. Communicating and consuming and shopping are going to change as well. Paying for a “subscription” or content in any form will be far easier to actually do and to understand its benefits. I anticipate the role of the search engines is going to be significantly altered as well, especially if Bing becomes the primary search partner, not Google.

But it also means that marketers’ direct relationship with consumers is changing. Who collects the money is one thing. Who is responsible for the cultivation and nurturing of customers – and how marketers will leverage new and existing media to reach those customers — is changing as well.

There’s much more to speculate about, but let’s see what happens tomorrow. We’ll have lots to figure out once this gets released and marketed. More to come.

Chris Paradysz is CEO of PM Digital.

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