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Dress Up

Yo ur Numb er s

We have sold four million iPhones to date. If you

divide four million by two hundred days, that’s

twenty thousand iPhones every day on average.

STEVE JOBS

O

n October 23, 2001, Apple launched a digital music

player that would revolutionize the entire music

industry—the iPod. At $399, however, it was an

expensive gadget. The iPod stored songs on a five-

gigabyte drive, but the number itself—5 GB—meant very little to

the average music lover. In his keynote presentation, Jobs made

that number more meaningful by saying that 5 GB provided

enough storage for one thousand songs. While that sounds more

impressive, it still did not provide a compelling value, since com-

petitors were offering devices containing more storage at a lower

price. But wait, Jobs assured his audience, there’s more. Jobs said

the new iPod weighed 6.5 ounces and was so small that it could

“fit in your pocket.” When Jobs pulled one out of his own pocket,

it immediately clicked with the audience. The iPod’s slogan said

it all: “1,000 songs in your pocket.”^1

Rarely do numbers resonate with people until those num-

bers are placed in a context that people can understand, and

the best way to help them understand is to make those numbers

relevant to something with which they are already familiar. Five

gigabytes may mean nothing to you, but one thousand songs