Consumer product success can be measured by the language used in its marketing

Tags: iPod, iTunes, Marketing, Apple, Dell, Ditty

By this point, most everyone has heard that Apple CEO Steve Jobs slammed "greedy" record labels at the Paris Apple Expo. But if we dive into the language Jobs used, his mastery of marketing becomes very clear. Look at the quote he used to describe the problem and why the prices shouldn't go up.

“The problem is we are still competing with piracy,” he said.

“The labels make more money from selling tracks on iTunes than when they sell a CD. There are no marketing costs for them. We are competing with piracy, so it needs to be a fair price: If the price goes up people will go back to piracy,” he warned.

What he did here was to name the competition to his iTunes service -- namely piracy. Then he went on to note his product's differentiation in terms of benefits -- that it is actually making more money for the record labels than they are making for themselves. And then he notes and names the competition again (the enemy is piracy, not the record labels), all in a grand total of four sentences. It's also very understandable language. This passage has a Flesch reading ease score of 81, making it readable and understandable by just about everyone.

Compare this with the Dell executive's quote that announced its new Ditty flash music player today (which, by the way, won't be available until nearly Christmas, in case anything thinks it is competing with the current Apple iPods);

"Dell is committed to helping customers get more out of their personal computers for entertainment and productivity by offering complementary products that are easy and fun to use in and outside the home and office," said Michael Farello, vice president of electronics and accessories for Dell's consumer business. "With every new generation of Dell personal technology products, we continue to increase value for customers by adding innovative and relevant features at attractive prices."

This quote has no recognition of the competition, no differentiation with competing products (despite the fact that the Dell has a display which the competing iPod shuffle doesn't), and no interesting language. It also is dense and hard to read. It has a Flesch readability score is 7.5. That is a lower readability than that of an auto insurance policy and only about 17 points higher than the tax code.

This isn't the dusty dull IT business; consumer products like the iPod and iTunes live and die by marketing. And based upon the marketing language being used by Apple and its competitors, it will be a while before Apple has viable competition.