A USA Today advertisement in today’s paper proves once and for all, the print media is slow to react and update by using a Kindle 1.0 instead of the new version. Can you believe it? Did none of the marketing gurus know that that Amazon announced the new and improved model almost two months ago? Doesn’t look like it.
by
Matt Burns
on
April 2, 2009
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Not news. Ads and marketing materials are created months in advance. They probably made this add in Fall 2009 before Kindle 2 was announced.
It is news. What is this fallacy that because the ad was made many months ago it would be okay? Especially at a daily. Someone at USA Today was absolutely privy to the fact that the Kindle 2 was being introduced six weeks after the paper made its Kindle debut on December 26. No excuses. If this happened on the editorial side, somebody would probably be looking for a new job.
It’s not the editorial side though, that’s the thing. It’s the marketing side, and the rules are much much different. The fact that USA Today is a daily newspaper actually increases the necessity to get ads done months in advance rather than decrease it.
They more than likely knew beforehand that the Kindle 2 was coming out, but they would not be able to get press photos of it, and Amazon would be foolish to let them put a prototype model into an ad.
And don’t even get me started on what happens if an ad leaks a brand new product (360 Elite/PS3/Most electronics ever).
It’s not news. It’s a necessary evil. You run the risk of this sort of thing with tech like the Kindle, but it’s better than ruining the unveiling of a gadget because you want the ad to be current.
As somebody who knows various design tools well, the ad could have been update very quickly. The only reason stuff like this happens is because ALL work has to be approved by somebody outside the group and they don’t work in a timely fashion.
Despite what the nitty gritty details is, this is a bit of a fail on USA’s site.
But in their defense, 99% of the Kindles in the wild are the v1.0 models, only us nerds even know what the new one looks like, heck you can’t even see these in your local bookstore chain or WalMart/Target chain.
I’m trying to manufacture outrage over this. Can’t seem to come up with it.
The picture is telling the truth; that is a Kindle. Heck, there may be more Kindle 1s in the wild than Kindle 2s.
I don’t see who this is hurting, to be honest. But maybe it’s just me!
That occurred to me, too. You could almost make an argument for catering to the Kindle 1 people, a lot of whom didn’t jump on the K2 since the K1 was still a great machine. I don’t know who’s outraged or hurt by it. But I think it was a mistake, and given a choice I don’t think USA Today would do this intentionally, despite the hip 2008 retro vibe! :)