With all of the information floating around the Internet it is hard to decipher between what is fact and fiction. An example of this is when companies (especially in the tech industry) announce a product release or an upcoming event. No one really knows what will come but many guess. One company that seems to always be in the spotlight is Apple. Bloggers and journalists love to start rumors about Apple.
How should companies handle rumors like these?
I don’t know if there is one good answer for this, but maybe the better question is why does this happen? Take a look at the latest rumors surrounding Apple. The upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference has everyone guessing. The tech blog AELAND T3 is guessing it will be about a new Mac OS X and iOS. This is probably a good guess because of the ad Apple released.
It seems like they want people to speculate about the products/events. They give a little information to tease you and then leave the rest for you to dream up.
I can’t speak for Apple, but if I had to guess, I would say they do this all for a reason. I mean, they did sell out this event in 10 hours, which isn’t too bad considering the tickets are $1,500.00 per person and last years event took 8 days to sell out.
Think about it. Do these rumors happen by chance or does Apple feed the fire?
4 Responses
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Lynn Smaagaard Says:
I was thinking about this today when discussing the pricing of the first iPhone. If you recall, Apple dropped the price significantly within a short period of time. Naturally those who had purchased the new iPhone were frustrated by the price drop and so Apple sent out a $100 gift certificate for Apple products. Of course this didn’t cost Apple $100 each and likely many customers neglected to redeem the certificate. It occured to me today that possibly this was a tactic to gain publicity and sell more phones.
Possibly there really is no such thing as bad publicity – just more exposure. -
Judelia Says:
Oh I think “nothing happens by chance”! A well controlled rumor plan is part of an overall game plan. Why would Apple leave something to chance, when it’s much better to manage the process?
Maybe we all ought to take a lesson from Apple…..
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Stephen Kelly Says:
I don’t remember the exact figure, but back in 2006 I looked at an anthropological paper that detailed how upwards of 80% of a human’s daily talking is spent “gossiping.” We gossip when we don’t even know we gossip.
To plan a marketing campaign with gossip close in mind sounds like terrific strategy to me.
Speaking of gossip, Rebecca Black now has over 125 million Youtube views. Crawl!
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Lynn Smaagaard Says:
Wow, is 125 million a record!?! I believe the 80% figure. With tenty-four hour news and hundreds of channels we can now spend our day entrenched in gossip. Although entertaining, I become concerned that people are too easily distracted. Maybe this is why there is a trend toward authenticity and “real” experiences.
