The iPhone Cafluffle

Are you baffled as to just what is going on at Apple? Why in the world would you put a bullet in your new product, the iPhone 8 by announcing it's replacement, the iPhone X, just when you are launching your new product, the iPhone 8? All while still offering the recent iPhone 7, and it's predecessors, the 6 series.

What Apple has forgotten is that they have trained the public that the iPhone 8 is better than the iPhone 7. Therefore, the iPhone X is MUCH better than the iPhone 8, or 7 or anything else with a lower number. The X, in the minds of customers, obsoletes everything before it.

In case you missed it Apple now offers, as explained by TechCrunch:

• The cheap and tiny “fun size” 4-inch iPhone SE from $349
• The “Yes, I still need a headphone jack” iPhone 6s and 6s Plus from $449
• The “I live in the future where headphone jacks are heresy” iPhone 7 and 7 Plus from $549
• The “I want a new but not giant” iPhone 8 from $699
• The “I want zoom but also want to save $200” iPhone 8 Plus from $799
• The “I want to feel superior and unlock with my face” iPhone X from $999

I am a techy guy, and they confused me. After standing in the T-mobile store for a few hours over two days, and trying to wrap my head around the Apple iPhone choices, I purchased my new iPhone 6s, because it was cheaper than the 7 and offered that handy-dandy headphone jack. It was the most phone for the least money. That was my rationale.  

The truth is, I just gave up. I wasn't sure if there was going to be a 7s, or an 8s. I know there are Plus versions of them, but will there be a 7s Plus, or 8s Plus? What about the X? That's the number 10 in Roman numerals, where did the iPhone 9 go? Was there one that never made it of the lab? Will there be one? Will it be an IX? IXs? IXs Plus? Will the next iPhone after the X be XI, or 11? Wait! I have a brilliant idea. Apple should change is number scheme to hexadecimal. The iPhone XI or 11, would be the iPhone B, or iPhone b, whichever one is cooler. That's sure to eliminate the confusion.

Apple is now facing less than stellar iPhone 8 sales, and why wouldn't they? If someone needs a new iPhone now, they can still buy a 6 or 7, save some money, and wait for the iPhone X. It is available for pre-order on October 27th.

Apple simultaneous made a brand new product old and confused customers. Two cardinal sins in the marketing world.

The NFL and the Stupidity of Offending Your Customer Base

The NFL and the Stupidity of Offending Your Customer Base

Rule #1: Understand your customers.
Rule #2: Don't do anything to make them angry.

As a marketing professional, every now and then in the business world a company makes such a blunder it leaves you scratching your head and asking, "What in the world were they thinking?" And so it is with the NFL allowing, then embracing national anthem protests, and protesters.

Do the NFL owners and coaches not know who their customers are? All they have to do is watch the commercials broadcast during their own games. It's pick-up trucks and beer for crying out loud! Remember Monday Night football's opening with country music star Hank Williams Jr.?  He was singing to that customer base. They take their football seriously. It's God, guts, guns and football. 

The NFL is made up of big, tough, bad ass American men. The US Military is made up of big, tough, bad ass American men. (I know women proudly serve too, but you get my point.) The National Anthem at the beginning of a NFL game is the glue that bonds those two images together in the hearts and minds of NFL fans. Does anyone think that a perfectly timed flyover by US warplanes, at the last note of the Star-Spangled Banner, is a coincidence? It's a big, God Bless America show, brought to you every Sunday, Monday and Thursday. Don't screw it up.

I am not going to argue whether it's a professional football player's right to sit or kneel to protest injustice in America. In a free society, anyone should be able to do anything that does not cause harm to anyone else. However, in any job you trade your time, for your employer's money. Your employer gets that money from customers. You, as an employee, then WORK FOR THE CUSTOMER. To make your customer happy and keep buying your product see Rule #1: Understand your customers. Then, Rule #2: Don't do anything to make them angry.

From a customer-satisfaction perspective, during the National Anthem it's not a good idea to do anything but stand, put your hand over your heart, and look at the flag of the USA. THAT is what the vast majority of your customers expect. I would wager that half of NFL fans of agreed with President Donald Trump when he said players who don't stand should be fired. Showing "unity" against the president by taking a knee, holding hands, sitting, hiding in the tunnel, whatever, was not going to play well, and it didn't. Surprise.

As a life-long Pittsburgh Steeler fan, who grew up in a small coal mining town in Western Pennsylvania, the pure stupidity of staying off the field for the National Anthem was dumbfounding. I'm sure it seemed like a good idea in the meeting room, but some quick V.O.C. (Voice Of the Customer), or the increasingly uncommon, common sense would have revealed otherwise. Whether it is Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Buffalo, Detroit, or another blue collar town, you do not, not ever, do anything that could be construed to be disrespectful to the flag, and thereby the US military, and thereby living veterans, and thereby people who came home from war in coffins draped in that flag. The customers of your product won't stand for it.

In case the NFL hasn't figured it out, this is what the customer base wants to see:

A quick review.
Rule #1: Understand your customers.

Rule #2: Don't do anything to make them angry.

Has the lesson been learned? Tune in, or don't tune in, next Sunday to find out.