Concerned Citizens

Last week on Friday Apple Computer fixed a problem and, in doing so, garnered the attention of most of the technology media and even some of the mainstream media in the process. What is even more interesting is that prior to the press conference Apple had essentially been denying there was a problem to fix. However, when faced with proof positive from Consumer Reports of a potential reception problem while holding the iPhone a certain way Steve Jobs had to confront the issue. In doing so he made lemons out of lemonade by turning the conference into a marketing event. Only one other person comes to mind with that type of charisma – PT Barnum.

What a lot of people may not realize about Friday’s conference was that Jobs essentially stole the headlines from another product that was expected to make headlines that day. Verizon’s Droid X was to be released to stores after its announcement and should have been the lead story in smartphones. After all, it was the latest in the long line of Android phones expected to challenge the iPhone’s dominance in the market. In fact, the Droid X launched and was sold out on the same day. That should have been the headlines.

However, Jobs had something else in mind and that was to not let a strong competitor to his iPhone dynasty take center stage. Instead, by calling a press conference at Apple headquarters in CA Jobs was able to gain the focus of the world during a 30 minute press conference to announce that yes, there was a problem and Apple would make you whole. Jobs turned the attention away from a potential iPhone killer and back at his iPhone, warts and all.

In looking at the entire fiasco I could only compare Jobs’ amazing ability to steal the show with PT Barnum, the master of the show. Barnum could draw a crowd anywhere he went and developed a series of hoaxes with the intent to entertain crowds. When Barnum visited Europe with General Tom Thumb he visited with Queen Victoria, making the event a publicity coup. This led to even greater exploits by Barnum who once remarked “‘The public’ is a very strange animal, and although a good knowledge of human nature will generally lead a caterer of amusement to hit the people right, they are fickle and ofttimes perverse.”

Barnum is famous for having the phrase ” There’s a sucker born every minute” attributed to him during his heyday. Barnum was right. People always love a good show and will fore go logic just for the opportunity to watch a good show. Jobs is essentially the same way in his mastery of dragging people to purchase a product like the iPhone, the iTouch and the iPad.

With Jobs at the helm of Apple announcements products are guaranteed to sell out across the globe. Granted, the Apple product always seems to get the user experience and is notorious for setting technology direction with its innovations like the iPhone. With this kind of hype curve in place Apple has outpaced market expectations on sales of all of its lines of products. All Apple has to do is release a product and Applenistas will line up outside the stores several days before just to get the “first” ones off the shelves before anyone has even touched the product.

So it’s probably not a stretch to compare Jobs to the ultimate showman of PT Barnum. After all, every Apple release event seems like a three ring circus. Why not acknowledge his marketing and staying power coupled with his ability to always make Apple shine.