Hovering above the technology “feature” weeds…

By Robert Wheatley

Wow, last week was “Apple Land in America,” with all of the online and mainstream media conversation around iPad. Marketing sites did comparisons of buzz-metrics between Jobs and President Obama’s State of the Union message, with Apple winning on most scorecards. Apple continues to blaze new trails, even in their deft handling of the sales message.

Brands look at the Apple phenomenon with envy. Wouldn’t we all want our brands to glow with similar outsized levels of consumer devotion and enthusiasm? Truckloads of breathless media attention and positive coverage oozing out of every channel we can dream up?

There’s a very simple yet dramatically important aspect to Apple’s behavior that bears mention. So much of the time in marketing and PR we’re focused on the essence of the new feature and benefit. We sit down in a conference room to review in every detail the various achievements the R&D department has wrought in discovering new recipes, technologies or bringing measurable improvements to an existing product.

And so communications follows this path to creatively move the “what’s new news” through various media channels. On the other hand, Apple religiously and routinely focuses its communication from a slightly different angle: the consumer first and itself second.

Sure the product messaging is there, but the twist is vital, important and matters to achieving a better outcome. The overview tour of iPad is conducted from the user experience point of view. It’s about you first and how the product answers the need, rather than me first and my wizardry.

What’s missing?

The lesson here all too often is about remembering to put the consumer in the driver seat on messaging. Framing the new product in terms of the consumer’s real need and then connecting to your solution’s deft handling of same. Steve Jobs talked about iPad in the user context. How the product makes common tasks like Web browsing and book reading more engaging and interesting.

Simply said: consumer first, me second. The shift is important because relevant messaging trumps the easy-to-fall-into trap of specsmanship. Consumer self-interests govern our willingness to engage and listen. Apple smartly knows this and frames the message in this way.

Consider a new food product that comes to the table answering first how it solves a preparation dilemma cooks would immediately recognize.

Or maybe a household appliance that springs from real-world concerns expressed by time-stressed homemakers.

So often in the consumer electronics world its about increased lines of resolution or connectivity improvements and expressed as such. Apple understands the specs and technology advances aren’t nearly as compelling as the experience itself.

What do you think?