Recently, I had the opportunity to try out a new widely popular cell
phone belonging to a friend of mine. After going through all of the
highly publicized features and applications, I quickly came to realize
that my current laptop computer, not coincidentally, can perform the
exact same menial tasks and boast thousands more features than this cell
phone. But, what got me really thinking was that my laptop costs only a
few hundred dollars more than the phone--and that's not including the
service plan!
As I tried to explain this to my friend, he was unable to stop his
fixation on the fact that it made him " cool" and how much the media
claims it's revolutionary. That was when I knew that my friend had
become the victim of the hype monster.
Now, there's a difference between publicity and hype-- there is the
excellence expectation with the latter. Overly-hyped products are not
only dangerous (is this the right word?) to the consumer, but it can
also to the promoting organization. For many companies, having a large
amount of push means boosted sales, company recognition and consumer
loyalty. But this is not always the case, as many products can end up
significantly underwhelming the consumer and potentially hurt sales, the
company, the related industry and future hyped products.
Fortunately, for some companies, the hype around a product can be so
large that it protects against complete failure and salvages the
company's reputation. A great example is Sony's Playstation 3. Despite
lackluster reviews, a steep price tag and being panned by the New York
Times, its hype was so great that millions of consumers still purchased
it.
As for my friend's phone- I knew that no matter how good or poor the
reviews, this product would be successful from its hype alone. I just
let him know that next time he's going to spend $600-plus on a product
to make sure its because he alone wants it, not because everyone else
does.
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