Apple’s Price Cuts: the Anatomy of a Press Release



2009 June, 11th
Liliana Dumitru-Steffens
Liliana Dumitru-Steffens

appleApple® cut prices on many high-profile products Monday, including the iPhone and certain MacBook Pro laptops. The biggest drop was the existing 8GB iPhone™ 3G that costs now just $99, while its main competitor, Palm Pre, is available for from $199 at Sprint.

Analysts suggest that this was a move driven by the hard financial times, a concession to the economy:

“The cuts show that Apple isn’t immune to the way the market is moving,” said Charles Smulders of Gartner.

The analysts are probably right: Apple, which is a company that was never prone to cut prices, does “break” the market with this move. What this PR is more interested in is how they do it: the company does announce the price cuts in a press release, but the title reads: “Apple Announces the New iPhone 3G S—The Fastest, Most Powerful iPhone Yet”

This is what I call smart PR – the company focuses the attention on the new product line. No negative innuendos in the press release title, no whining about the recession and how they had to cut prices to compete.

Apple® does a superb job describing its new product in the first paragraph of the press release. Noise words and phrases like “incredible new features”, “the world’s most advanced mobile operating system”, and “the largest application store in the world” stream flawlessly in the writing style, being persuasive instead of feeble, as it usually happens in over-hyped press releases.

Although the title of the press release is focused on the positive, the price cut (which is only positive from a customer point of view) is a highlight. The new price for the iPhone™ 3G is mentioned four times:

  • in the press release’s subtitle “iPhone 3G Now Available for $99”
  • at the end of the first paragraph “And beginning today, iPhone 3G is available at the breakthrough price of just $99 for the 8GB model—a huge milestone for the high end smartphone market.“
  • in a quote by Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of WorldWide Product Marketing: “iPhone 3G S is the fastest, most powerful iPhone yet and we think people will love the incredible new features including autofocus camera, video recording and the freedom of voice control, and with a breakthrough price of $99, we are thrilled to get iPhone 3G into the hands of even more users who want them.”
  • And close to the end of the press release, listed under “pricing and availability”: “Beginning June 8, iPhone 3G will be available for just $99 (US) for the 8GB model.”

Note that Apple doesn’t mention anywhere in the press release that they “cut prices.” Instead, they make it sound like the new prices are an ordinary occurrence and they focus more on the new iPhone 3G S, with its new features and affordable prices.

As I mentioned above, the noise words add value to the release, because they actually depict a reality: Apple does have the world’s largest App Store, and customers did download more than one billion apps from this store.

It is important to understand that the use of superlatives and noise words in press releases apply only when they depict actual facts.

Saying that the iPhone is the most popular product in its class in the world for example is a fact. Saying that an obscure company is “a leader in the market” is a blatantly false statement made to lure the media into covering something with no real value, and made to determine uniformed readers into becoming consumers.

While the gross of Apple’s press release reads fine, the ending basically spoils it:

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.

This is the “About Apple” part and what bothers is the over use of “revolution” and “revolutionary.” Also “leads the industry in innovation” and “spearheads the digital media revolution” are two statements implying the same thing (Apple=market leader). These are facts, yes, but did Apple really need to over blow its own horn? I have my doubts.

This only proves that even the best press release is not perfect. The media coverage also shows that while Apple was hoping to get positive feedback about its apparent generosity (offering a popular product at a fraction of the cost), the consumers are not easily fooled. The message was clear: thank you Apple, it’s nice that you did it, but don’t take us for fools, we know why you did it.

About the Author

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Liliana Dumitru-Steffens is public relations consultant for Pamil Visions PR. She writes for Everything PR since January 2009. Previously she worked for My-tronic GmbH and Unilever Romania. Email Liliana at lsteffens [at] pamil-visions [dot] net.

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There Are 5 Responses So Far. »

  1. Comment by Tenacious MC on 11 June 2009:

    While I understand the point regarding the “About Apple” paragraph, you shouldn’t act as if this is the first Apple press release you’ve ever read.

    Apple’s always used that paragraph in their press releases, even before this recession started. Every company that’s smart about their business isn’t going to admit defeat and use these bad economic times to try to keep their sales going. Potential customers don’t need to be reminded how bad our economy is. This country and most companies are (or should be) keeping things in a positive light and trying to reignite the economy back to the way they were. Apple hasn’t shown they’re being hit bad by the economy so why should they now? Being humble and showing humility only brings everyone’s sense of morale down.

    As for Apple appearing to show generosity, what company would anyway, unless they were desperate? Every company is in it to make a profit, but that shouldn’t take away the fact they might also want to better everyone’s way of life at the same time. As long as there’s quality behind any product being sold, the idea of making a profit shouldn’t be an issue at all. Everyone needs to make a living, even though it wouldn’t hurt to give a little back to the community. Regardless, no company is going to do anything or everything for free.

    That kind of attitude only feeds the arrogant entitlement culture we live in now.

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  3. Comment by Liliana Dumitru-Steffens on 11 June 2009:

    @Tenacious – definitely not the first Apple press release I read, I was just pointing out that the About section is a little overstated in the circumstance. I actually believe that Apple does things very smart: they don’t use any negative words in the release. Other companies would announce similar events with: “your favorite phone now 50% off”, or “big discounts at…” etc. My point was that apple does not appear cheap, even if they were forced to make the prices cheaper. That’s very smart and many companies should learn to emulate this.

    Sure, not companies like TESCO, ALDI, LIDL etc, who are in the business of bargains.

    When you say “this country” you certainly refer to the USA. Everything PR is a European based site, although it does cover international news – we have Apples too, btw. :)

    News are received differently based on geo location: Europeans are cautious when they read a press release that sounds too cocky.

  4. Comment by John Virata on 11 June 2009:

    “Apple Announces the New iPhone 3G S—The Fastest, Most Powerful iPhone Yet”

    “This is what I call smart PR – the company focuses the attention on the new product line.”

    Well of course any company will focus on the new product line, that is what any good PR Flack will focus on, not a price cut of an old product.

  5. Comment by Website Design on 3 July 2009:

    Its good to know about the price cut. Now Apple’s brand products are within most people’s reach