Categories: Articles

500,000 iPhone Consumers Can't Be Wrong

It did not shock me to see this headline over at Gizmodo: Opening Weekend iPhone Numbers: 500,000 Sold, Mostly (Surprise) 8GB Models.
Here’s how it rolls when you have a product and the Marketing to back it up:
“Analysts from Piper Jaffray guesstimate that Apple moved around half a million iPhones in the 48 hours from 6PM Friday to 6PM Sunday. Besides the big-baller number, there are a couple other chewy ones: 95 percent of SF, NY and Minneapolis disciples picked up the 8GB version and about half were new AT&T customers.”
I wish we could compare this stat to how many iPods were sold in its first three days.
While I’ve been ranting for the past little while about how the Apple iPhone will be a game changer in terms of how we work with content and media (along with my consistent bortching that Canada still does not have an official release date), I’m thrilled to see that the sales and enthusiasm was there for its launch. As you can well imagine, there was tons of speculation that the device could never live up to the hype, etc_
Along with the glory, comes tons of criticism (it seems like a large chunk is aimed more at AT&T – the carrier – then at Apple directly). I’ve even seen some humorous YouTube videos about non-issues (like whether or not the touch screen would be apt for thumb-texting). As you can see by this rather crude example, it seems to work pretty fine.
So, what’s left for Marketers to do?
Get one.
I know, it’s expensive and you may have to change (or add) carriers. Still, get one. This is a perfect opportunity to not have that “left behind” feeling we all tend to get when we see something happening in the marketing space, yet we do little (or nothing) about it.
Just last night at dinner, someone asked me if I was going to get an iPhone. When I answered in the affirmative, the follow-up question was, “but I thought you were a devout Blackberry person?”
I am_ But if I can have both, I will. I can’t be out there (or here) talking about the many forms of new and digital media and have no personal insights into what the iPhone can do.
If Apple’s iPhone changes the way we live and breathe content and media (which I think it will), it will be very difficult for me, as a Marketer, to truly understand how and why it connects people unless I’m walking the talk_ warts, frustrations, glory and all.
If that doesn’t sway you, then the simple mathematics should. 500,000 sold in the first three days and that’s the U.S. alone – and on only one carrier. Imagine when it launches in other countries with multiple carriers and as new generation iPhones enter the marketplace (more memory, battery life, applications, competitive pricing, etc…).

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.