The Advertising Method Behind The Kindle’s Success
What do Hilary Clinton, Stephen King, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Oprah Winfrey have in common? Apart from the ability to scare you on occasion that is. The answer is that all of them have, at different times and in different ways, provided good publicity for Amazon’s Kindle reader.
Oprah Winfrey was first. As long ago as 2008 she announced that Amazon’s original Kindle was her “favorite new gadget”. She also interviewed Amazon founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, on her show and provided the Kindle with a very favourable review. It was a real shot in the arm for Amazon.
Stephen King, the world’s best selling author, wrote a special novella – “Ur” – to commemorate the release of Amazon’s updated reader, the Kindle 2, in February 2009. Without giving the story away, the plot related to the use of the Kindle itself and what happened when an English teacher bought a Kindle for himself after breaking up with his girlfriend. King read an extract from the book live on stage at the official Kindle 2 launch. More good publicity for Amazon.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, in his role as Governor of California, initiated a program to make free digital textbooks available in Californian schools. The program, which has several stages, was first introduced in August of 2009. It seemed that, at least as far as electronic textbooks were concerned, the future had arrived somewhat faster than many people had anticipated. At the end of the day, if Arnie says that they’re a good idea who’s going to tell him he’s wrong?
Staying with the educational theme, a Washington think tank – the New Democratic Leadership Council – which numbers Hilary Clinton among its members, released a white paper entitled “A Kindle In Every Backpack”. The paper espoused the benefits of introducing electronic books and e-book readers into the in the U.S. education system. Although the report did acknowledge that other devices could be employed the fact that the Kindle was not only referenced at various points within the document, but even included in the title, was fantastic publicity for Amazon.
These are just four examples of the kind of exposure the Kindle reader has managed to achieve. Over the course of 2009, the Kindle generated a huge amount of publicity, mainly for itself but also for e-book readers as a whole. It’s easy to see how the Kindle has managed to achieve a 60% share of the e-book reader market in America.
There are now a lot of companies with their own e-book readers on the market. Whilst many of these incorporate technical specs which, in some areas at least, outperforms the Kindle, there just doesn’t seem to be the same buzz about any of them that existed, and to a large extent still exists, around the Kindle. It really is difficult to imagine where the Kindle Killer is coming from – unless it’s the next Kindle upgrade itself of course.
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