Monday, September 10, 2007

Endangered Species

The news headline of the day… “The 1 Millionth iPhone Sold!”…74 days after its introduction on June 29th.

It took more than 2 years for the iPod to reach the same sales level – 738 days… just about 10 times as long!

WOW!

I got an iPhone about 10 days after it initially launched. When I showed mine to friends and clients, many quickly told me that the batteries don’t last long like the ones they have on their BlackBerry “CrackBerries” –

Ahhh…. yeah, that’s true, but does your “CrackBerry” broadcast YouTube, have a built-in iPod, link into the NYSE, Google map or open attachment files? When was the last time you heard about a pro football player consuming a Slimfast before the Sunday game?

And while it is news that I million+ iPhones are now out there… there is something far more news-worthy and something marketers need to embrace…

The new promotion and broadcast campaign of the 8GB iPod nano that “let’s you enjoy TV shows, movies, video podcasts and more.”

Think about it. On April 9th of this year, Apple sold the 100 millionth iPod. 100 milliion! That is a more than the population of Canada, England and France combined. And the conversion to an iPod nano is like trading in your 2004 Honda Civic for the new 2008 Honda CR-V… how many iPod people out there will soon be enjoying mobile broadcast links on YouTube?

YouTube also announced this week that more than 100 million videos are viewed on YouTube each day… 100 million!

I remember when I was with Time-Warner if TBS increased its rating from 2.9 to 3.1 they popped the corks and celebrated. That means that out of 111.4 million Nielsen estimated television households in the US, TBS got 222,800 more households to tune into TBS.

God love the media buyers and planners. God love the broadcast networks.

The iPod nano may bring new meaning to the phrase “soon-to-be-extinct.”

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