I attended a press conference a few days ago for a high end smartphone brand. Among us were some tech bloggers, IT journalists and a number of lifestyle editors from the glossies. The product manager enjoyed talking about his new baby - one of the top of the line smartphones that recently hit the market. What was rather peculiar was how he made mention of the Apple iPhone and it sounded more like he was trying to justify why his product X had features Y and Z which the iPhone didn’t have.
Raised eyebrows from a number of tech journalists.
After the conference, I approached him and asked him why the comparison has to be made to the iPhone all the time. I interjected that mentioning a competitor’s product during your own press conference made it sound more like a fit of desperation on your end. The truth is, the iPhone and his product are two different things. He answered me quickly and said that apparently, consumers don’t think that way. Because of the commercial hype it generated, the iPhone is being compared to everything in the market.
I told him that well, we’re IT journalists and technology bloggers — and you don’t need to justify with us how different these two products are. We know. We did our research. We’re well informed.
It is good that product managers are very aware of the competition. But marketing is marketing - they should only mention the “other phone that begins with an i” if a journalist asks a question pertaining to that during a press conference. Otherwise, I don’t see a need to passively promote your competitor’s products.
Do you agree with me? Or do you think that product managers should really just address this question during a product presentation? C’mon guys, be honest!
Tags: 70 countries, Apple, iPhone, iPhone 3G
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