When throwing a party, make sure you have enough ice

Hey, did you hear that Apple came out with a new phone? 

If you didn’t, well, welcome back from the Antarctic vacation! Yes, Friday was the big iPhone 3G day. People lined up at stores to get the newest and shiniest Apple product. Apple is very, very good at building excitement about their new products; whether it’s a Steve Jobs keynote, or the iPhone, or new iPods, there are few companies so good at getting buzz going about sometimes routine product releases. The result is media coverage, big bursts in sales, and an ongoing sense that they are the happening tech company. 

Big events have big risks, though. When all the excitement is focused on one day, that day had better be good. 

Last Friday was a rocky one for Apple, though. It was not the happy “it just works” experience that is the core of Apple’s brand identity. 

There were issues with phone activations that affected both iPhone buyers and current iPhone owners who upgraded to the new software on Friday. The iTunes servers got overwhelmed and the last step of activation a new phone or upgrading an old one often looked like this:

Or it involved seeing this on your computer for an hour (or two, or three):

Another big item on iPhone Friday was the launch of Apple’s MobileMe service. This didn’t get as much attention as the phone itself, but it’s a big deal: Apple has taken its .Mac service, a set of online applications and storage space designed for Mac users, and repackaged it as a service to help you sync data across multiple platforms in real time. They are also now explicitly marketing it to Windows users. 

If you heard about it and were intrigued, here’s what you saw Friday morning when you went to check the new service out:

Ouch. All that’s missing is the little guy with a hardhat and a shovel. 

The point of this isn’t just to beat up on Apple; I’m a happy Apple customer.* It’s that when you generate buzz about your big event - the grand opening, product launch day, whatever - you have to deliver. That means making everything is set up correctly to deliver the experience you’ve promised. 

Apple failed on that count last Friday. There were news stories about the problems, blogs and Twitter were abuzz with frustrated users comparing notes, and it appears that the problem was pretty simple: Apple infrastructure couldn’t keep up with completely predictable demand. They know how many iPhone users already are out there and could make a good estimate of how many would upgrade Friday (or could have controlled that by controlling how the upgrade was pushed out via their own software update facility). They knew how many iPhones they’d sell; it seems that generally stores got a certain number, sold them all in the first hour, and that was it. 

It’s embarrassing for them. It’s also probably not going to matter much, because after a few hours phones were activating and users were oohing and ahing over them, MobileMe was online, and life went on. When people like your brand, they are very forgiving, and I doubt anyone will be talking about this in a week or so. 

That’s Apple. Are people as forgiving of you? Probably not. 

So it you’re planning a big event, I have two suggestions. 

1. Think hard about that. It’s a high risk approach, and doesn’t replace slow and steady marketing work. If you decide that it does make sense…
2. Make sure you have enough beer, chips, and ice for the party. Think about things that could go wrong. Have backup plans. Practice. Be prepared, so that the big day doesn’t become a big disaster. 

Because when it happens to Apple, they recover fast. When it happens to mere mortals without a brand that strong, it can be a lot uglier. 

* And I should note that on Friday morning, I foolishly clicked the Update button for the software upgrade and had a frustrating morning with no working phone. Which, in retrospect, was predictable; I should have waited. And like so many other users, after cursing Apple all morning, it all worked, I said, “ooh… ahh…” and now I’m happy. 

More posts about Apple:

• A tiny worm in the old Apple?
• If they love you, all is forgiven
• Blogging at Apple
• More on Apple and social media
• Remember who you are

---

Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically each day to your feed reader. If you don't have a feed reader, you can always have these articles delivered to your email inbox every day. Click here to sign up.

The Opinionated Marketers | Powered by WordPress | ElegantBlue is a custom theme by Nathan Rice