Page 199 - The Apple Experience

within a Twitter post of 140 characters. Simple messages are more easily
processed by the brain. Simple is more memorable and easier for employees

to repeat to customers. Apple makes sure its key messages are concise,

typically one short sentence. Although Apple doesn’t purposely use Twitter

as its test, it’s uncanny how every product description as far back as 2001 can

fit easily within a Twitter post:

 iPod: 1,000 songs in your pocket.

 MacBook Air: The world’s thinnest notebook.

 iPhone: Apple reinvents the phone.

 iPad: A magical and revolutionary device.

 iCloud: Stores your content and wirelessly pushes it to all your devices.

An Apple-like approach to the marketing and sales conversation starts

with developing key messages about your service, product, company, or

cause. The Twitter-friendly headline—the overarching key message—should

be no more than one sentence and 140 characters in length. When the
company Reckitt Benckiser, which makes products like Calgon, Lysol, and

Woolite, introduced a new Clearasil face-wash dispenser, its executive

director stated publicly that the campaign was modeled on Apple. That

meant creating one key message that would be repeated in YouTube videos,

commercials, and other marketing channels. The repeatable key message in

the Clearasil campaign was, “The perfect dose for visibly clear skin” (thirty-

nine characters). When Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg introduced a
new look for his site’s homepage called Timeline, he said, “Timeline is the

whole story of your life on a single page” (fifty-seven characters). It was

memorable, and yes, many observers compared Zuckerberg to Steve Jobs.

The Timeline description turned up in thousands of blogs and news articles.