40 CREATE THE STORY
140 Characters or Less
Jobs creates headlines that are specific, are memorable, and, best
of all, can fit in a Twitter post. Twitter is a fast-growing social
networking site that could best be described as your life between
e-mail and blogs. Millions of users “tweet” about the daily hap-
penings in their lives and can choose to follow the happenings
of others. Twitter is changing the nature of business communi-
cation in a fundamental way—it forces people to write concisely.
The maximum post—or tweet—is 140 characters. Characters
include letters, spaces, and punctuation. For example, Jobs’s
description of the MacBook Air takes thirty characters, includ-
ing the period: “The world’s thinnest notebook.”
Jobs has a one-line description for nearly every product, and
it is carefully created in the planning stage well before the pre-
sentation, press releases, and marketing material are finished.
Most important, the headline is consistent. On January 15,
2008, the day of the MacBook Air announcement, the headline
was repeated in every channel of communication: presentations,
website, interviews, advertisements, billboards, and posters.
In Table 4.1, you see how Apple and Jobs consistently deliv-
ered the vision behind MacBook Air.
Most presenters cannot describe their company, product,
or service in one sentence. Understandably, it becomes nearlyThe minute Jobs delivers a headline onstage, the Apple
publicity and marketing teams kick into full gear. Posters are
dropped down inside the Macworld Expo, billboards go up,
the front page of the Apple website reveals the product and
headline, and ads reflect the headline in newspapers and mag-
azines, as well as on television and radio. Whether it’s “1,000
songs in your pocket” or “The world’s thinnest notebook,” the
headline is repeated consistently in all of Apple’s marketing
channels.Setting the Stage for the Marketing Blitz