I am not completely convinced of many things surrounding trending. Why? Because few things in this world have the staying power to be around long enough to establish a true trend. Of course, you can call anything for any time period a trend if you want but calling an ant a tiger doesn’t make him a tiger if you get my drift. One thing you can see over a short period of time, though, is an impact. Trending is the longer term whereas impact is the short term change in numbers or behavior. Sometimes the impact is really obvious like that of the release of the iPhone 4S back in October of 2011. Based on some findings from a Nielsen survey there may be a new joke in the mobile space that goes something like this. Q: How do you stop Android from gaining more and more market share? A: Release a new iPhone. Take a look. It may be that simple. Look at the short term impact on percentage of new acquisitions going from Android to iOS. It’s startling. There is more to this report which shows that Android still has the overall lead etc, etc. What one has to consider when looking at the impact that the new release had on Android share of new purchases is that Apple is simply more spectacular in its product.That doesn’t mean better necessarily, just more spectacular. What I mean by that is you can’t go a day without the next and greatest Android device being introduced. Is it the Samsung Nexus blah blah blah or the Motorola Bionic Razor Droid thing that is the best Android device? All the “news” runs together and is never set apart. When Apple releases a new phone, however, it is a spectacle and people plan around it. It’s an event that doesn’t happen often and it usually marks some improvement in an already strong product. I am thinking about my contract being up this year with my provider and moving from Android to iPhone based on an iPhone 5 release (whenever that may be, I have no clue and am totally uninterested in rumor mongering). Even with a very Google centric life and a strong desire for a larger screen device, the lure of the spectacle is enough to make me consider making the switch. So what’s the point you ask? Well, it may be a larger one about marketing in a world as fickle as the one we live in today. If you are doing things that seem to just announce every little step along the way you quickly become part of the noise. It’s doing something spectacular that makes people notice. Its always been that way but it now is almost a NECESSARY part of any marketing plan. Let’s face it, if you just allow yourself or your product to fade into the background like the rest you’ll never stick out and you could just fade away. Are you planning something spectacular? If not, why not?
