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Headlines

Today Apple reinvents the phone!

STEVE JOBS, MACWORLD 2007

“

W

elcome to Macworld 2008. There is something

clearly in the air today.”^1 With that opening

line, Steve Jobs set the theme for what would

ultimately be the big announcement of his

keynote presentation—the introduction of an ultrathin note-

book computer. No other portable computer could compare to

this three-pound, 0.16-inch-thin “dreambook,” as some observ-

ers called it. Steve Jobs knew that everyone would be searching

for just the right words to describe it, so he did it for them:

“MacBook Air. The world’s thinnest notebook.”

The MacBook Air is Apple’s ultrathin notebook computer.

The best way to describe it is as, well, the world’s thinnest note-

book. Search for “world’s thinnest notebook” on Google, and the

search engine will return about thirty thousand citations, most

of which were written after the announcement. Jobs takes the

guesswork out of a new product by creating a one-line descrip-

tion or headline that best reflects the product. The headlines

work so well that the media will often run with them word for

word. You see, reporters (and your audience) are looking for a

category in which to place your product and a way of describing

the product in one sentence. Take the work out of it and write

the headline yourself.