One more thing . . .

The most expensive TV air time in America is during the National Football Leagues annual Super Bowl. The last super bowl cost $2.4 million for 30 seconds. That works out to $80,000 a second. Pretty expensive wouldn’t you say? Of course if you really need people to see your product then it might be worth it. Of course you could go with much cheaper advertising venues but they lack the impact that the super bowl has. Putting out a funny, touching or otherwise memorable commercial during the NFL’s big event will also land you a good deal of “extra” coverage, and the best part is, it’s free. Since everybody talks about the super bowl ads if your ad was special in some way then chances are it will be debated, analyzed, commented on and kicked around the internet long after the champions get their rings and go home.

But what if you can’t afford $2.4 million for a single commercial? Well, there is always regular TV. And movies, can’t forget about them. Or you could go with printed media: magazines, newspapers and brochures. Then you have radio spots, TV plugs, celebrity endorsements and the Goodyear Blimp. Or perhaps if you want to be a little different you could find a nice girl with a pair of 42GG size breast and tattoo you logo onto them. But that might be a bit much for some people. However, regardless of which method you choose there are substantial cost involved. A typical company wishing to advertise something will hire an advertising firm to come up with a suitable campaign for them to follow. Then the company will decide how much they want to spend and in what venues they wish to spend it in. Then, somewhere down the road, the product or service is actually advertised hopefully increasing sales. And then the cycle repeats.

All in all advertising can become fairly expensive. Creative just recently blew $100 on advertising to dethrone the iPod (it was unsuccessful, duh). Now, that might not sound like much until you realize that in the same year Creative only made a profit of $600 million. In other words they spent 1/6 of their earnings on an advertising campaign that ultimately didn’t turn out all that well. They gambled and lost, but in this game it cost millions just to pony up to the table.

All of the advertising and media coverage I have just mentioned is all geared towards getting the word out on a product you already have. Meaning you want people to go out to Best Buy or Wal Mart or where ever and buy your product. This way you can see a fairly straightforward relationship between the advertising of your product and the selling of your product. It’s a good thing to spend money on because you can turn around and watch as you recoup that cost via increased sales. However, spending considerable sums of money on a press release don’t make nearly as much sense because there is such a long time between the announcement and the time that most people can go out and purchase your product. And during that time the public forgets and you will have to go out and buy more media time to get them to remember again. So most companies don’t worry much about advertising for such unimportant events. Press releases are issued, certain interested parties discuss it online and life goes on. Think about it, when was the last time you remember Dell or HP making a big deal about a new line of computers? Sure it happens but it is the exception not the norm.

And this brings us to Apple and October 12th. How much does it cost to send an email? Virtually nothing for a company Apple’s size. And yet how much free advertising did they get by sending out an email to certain key groups inviting them to a press release? The emails had a red curtain and three simple words “one more thing. . .”

Oh how the speculation soared! It’s a new (pick one) iPod, ViPod, iMac, PowerMac, new Mac, movie service etc. Apple has once again pulled off an amazing media blitz with nothing more than an email. That is impressive. And so, when October 12th does finally get here the media will be much more interested in what Apple has to say than otherwise would have been possible, short of spending millions on advertising. But I almost forgot, Apple doesn’t advertise like that, they think a little different.