6:00 am, February 3rd, 2010, Carmine Gallo
Steve Jobs doesn’t follow a presentation template but as outlined in my new book, The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs, he does consistently follow the same principles that have turned Apple product launches into an art form. The iPad announcement on Wednesday, January 27th was no exception: classic Steve Jobs.
Jobs always frames a new product for the benefit of the press and his customers. These headlines are descriptive, tangible and short, fitting well within a 140-character Twitter post. What’s an iPod? “1,000 songs in your pocket.” On January 27, Jobs created a 92-character Twitter friendly headline for iPad: Our most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price. On cue, the Apple web site posted images of the iPad on the home page alongside the same headline that Jobs had revealed minutes earlier. The headline is consistent across all marketing channels including the presentation, press releases, Web site and advertisements.
Every Steve Jobs presentation has a hero and a villain. In the iPad presentation, Netbooks played the role of the villain—a problem in need of a solution. Jobs showed a slide with an iPhone on one side and a MacBook on the other. A question mark appeared in the middle. He asked rhetorically whether there was room for a third category of device. “These devices would have to be far better at doing some key tasks,” he said. “Some people think it’s a Netbook. The problem is Netbooks aren’t better at anything. They have slow, low quality displays and clunky old PC software,” he said. Only after he had set up the problem did Jobs introduce the hero: “We have something better. We call it iPad.”
Neuroscientists have found that humans can only consume three or four chunks of information in short term memory. It’s uncanny but Jobs divides products, ideas and messages into three parts and he does so in every presentation. Here are some examples from the iPad presentation:
Apple gets its revenue from three product lines; iPhones, iPods and Macs.
Apple has three competitors in the mobile devices category: Nokia, Samsung and Sony.
Netbooks have three problems: Slow, low-quality displays, and run clunky PC software.
There are no bullet points in a Steve Jobs presentation. Most of his slides are highly visual— photographs and images. This is called picture superiority; we retain information better when it is presented as text and pictures instead of text alone. Look at some of the slides from the iPad announcement. Each feature is represented visually—one feature, one idea per slide.
Steve Jobs uses descriptive, emotive language that appeals to your right brain. Some critics say it borders on hyperbole, but better to use emotion to convey excitement than stale, jargon-laden buzzwords that rarely, if ever, creep into a Jobs presentation. Here are some examples from the iPad launch:
“It’s so much more intimate than a laptop and so much more capable than a SmartPhone.”
“It’s the best browsing experience you’ve ever had.”
“It’s a dream to type on.”
“It’s that simple.”
“It’s a screamer” (describing the A4, Apple designed chip)
Steve Jobs rehearses his presentations for many hours over many weeks to get everything just right. He carefully reviews every slide and knows exactly what he’s going to say and how he’s going to say it. The result is a presentation like the iPad which looks effortless. It looks easy but the polish only comes after weeks of grueling practice. Even the set for the iPad launch was simply created to reinforce the message. A leather chair and a small circular table were the only props, reflecting the “intimacy” of the product.
For more than twenty-five years since the 1984 Macintosh launch, Steve Jobs has proven himself to be one of the greatest corporate storytellers on the world stage. It’s good to see that even after a serious illness in 2008, he hasn’t lost a step, continuing to raise the bar for communicators in every industry.
Carmine Gallo is a communications coach and author, The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs; How to be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience. Visit him online at CarmineGallo.com.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
