I’ve been disappointed in almost all the launch events I’ve seen since we mainly moved to virtual events. Most aren’t that different than in-person events where the speaker(s) get up on stage and pontificate.
Some use a lot of visual aids that help, but mostly, they showcase the same limitations as in-person events, so they struggle to hold an online audience, which can more easily be distracted than an in-person audience.
Let’s talk about that this week, and we’ll close with my Product of the Week, which must be either the new Apple Watch Ultra 2 or the new iPhone 15 Pro. I think the watch is the bigger deal, though, so it will be my Product of the Week.
How Typical Product Launches Are Done
I’m an ex-actor and ex-marketing director, so I used to teach a class on how to do presentations. Then, as now, it often seems that launch presentations are designed for the presenters as a task they are required to do. Instead of being selected for their presentation skills, presenters are chosen because of their titles.
Presentations are generally created just short of the event and changed up to minutes beforehand so that people not trained on teleprompters get up on stage and showcase how little they rehearsed. Some rehearse adequately and do well, but they tend to be the exception rather than the rule.
In addition, the content of most tech presentations is on the technology in the product, with little focus on what it might mean to a buyer or user. Even if the technology is visual in nature, the presenter is likely to show how the technology works rather than what it does. People in the audience who generally don’t want to understand the technology are left bored and not overly excited about the product.
Product launches should be focused on getting people excited about and wanting to purchase the product. Virtual launches should be dynamic, feature fewer talking heads, and showcase instead what the product does in a way that makes you want it.
Too often, after a typical launch event, people just aren’t that interested in what was launched. It’s as if the presenters thought the goal was to live through being on stage, and the audience’s goal was to survive the experience.
But that was not the case with last week’s Apple launch event. It had a non-Apple fan like me lusting after the iPhone 15 Pro and the Apple Watch Ultra 2.
Wonderlust Launch Event
The event kicked off with a beautiful drone sequence of Apple’s headquarters building, which, admittedly, is one of the most awesome buildings in the world. They then talked about some of the products that were doing well that weren’t being launched, like the 15-inch MacBook Air that Tom’s Hardware said was the best laptop in the market, and the coming Apple Vision Pro (this last became important later) which has done what Meta has been failing at of late by driving interest to the VR segment.
Watch Series 9
The first announcement was the Apple Watch Series 9 (pictured above), which is an impressive product. The Apple Watch has long led the smartwatch segment, but competitors have been catching up. The watch I wear, the TicWatch Pro 5, is superior to the Apple Watch Series 8 in many ways. However, the Apple Watch Series 9 again moves into the lead with improved screen brightness, battery life, functionality, and sustainability.
