iPad an Opportunity for Advertisers

Steve Jobs Calls the New iPad “Revolutionary.” The Apple tablet could offer a new way for marketers to reach consumers IF they will seize the opportunity.

It’s good for agencies to stay ahead of the learning curve of communication technology, to know what’s coming down the pike that will impact our industry.

CNN.com covered Apple’s unveiling of the iPad announcement live with Twitter updates from @cnntech and the CNNmoney live blog. Apple CEO Steve Jobs said,

• “What this device does is extraordinary.”
• “It is the best browsing experience you’ve ever had.”
• “It’s a dream to type on.”
• “This is a magical device, at a breakthrough price.”
• “It’s unbelievably great … way better than a laptop.”
• “Way better than a smartphone. It screams.”
• “We have an unlimited plan for just $29.99 a month.”

Here are some of the announcement highlights:

• Apple tablet computer to be called the iPad
• CEO Steve Jobs calls the computer “magical” and “revolutionary”
• Price will range from $499 to $829 and they’ll begin shipping in 60 days.
• iBook interface lets users tap books in a virtual bookshelf to read them
• A nearly 10-inch screen
• It runs existing apps from the Apple apps store
• It’s available in 16-gigabyte, 32-gigabyte and 64-gigabyte versions
• It is about a half-inch thick and weigh about 1½ pounds
• The device will have a 1 GHz processor
• New app: iBooks. Five of the biggest publishers in the world are part of this
• Users can flip pages forward or back by tapping the screen, or drag pages with your finger
• Keyboard dock
• Easily connects to projectors
• BATTERY LIFE: 10 hours, over a month on standby
• They are scheduled to begin shipping in 60 days

Most tech blogs are excited and optimistic that the iPad is indeed a revolutionary product because there are already:

• Over 12 billion App downloads
• Over 125 million accounts with credit cards
• Over 75 million people already know how to use the iPad (iPhones, iPods)

It is predicted that Apple will sell over 10 million iPads this year alone. It should get the attention of advertisers. The bigger size of the Apple tablet will allow marketers to introduce more browser and video functions. With a 10-inch touch screen that will display movies, TV shows, games and publications, and also let consumers interact with them.

This device will offer a new way for marketers to reach consumers through this interactivity in a way similar to what the iPhone and iPod Touch has done for the $4.2 billion dollar a year app industry, which didn’t even exist a couple of years ago.

The iPad could also single-handedly resurrect the print industry.

“In the midst of the recession, advertisers left newspapers in droves as circulation numbers plummeted. Many newspapers around the world closed, popular and seemingly indestructible mastheads issued hundreds of redundancy notices and journalists started shaking in their boots – the future of journalism in tatters.

But here we are today, we’ve made it through the storm and now Apple just might save the industry, shaking things up and changing traditional advertising for ever,” UTalkMarketing’s Melinda Varley.

Another insightful article, Luke Hayman, a partner at Pentagram, among the top magazine designers, recently redesigning of New York, Time, and Travel+Leisure, he provides “five ways that iPad will change magazine design.”

The only constant in advertising is change. To maintain success, you have to keep up. That isn’t easy. Especially with this revolutionary change we’re experiencing in communications. It’s time for the ad community and marketing community with all of its creative and intelligent minds, to be the agents of change instead of being the ones forced to change.

Read the entire CNN Tech article, “Apple unveils the ‘magical’ iPad” or watch the video of his presentation: Steve Jobs presents Apple’s new tablet. The NY Times also provides a Demo of the Apple iPad

Additional iPad articles that may be of interest:

• Survey: 2010 Digital Marketing Outlook
• 2010: The future of magazines and ad agency promotion
• New Apple device could change the way we read newspapers, magazines and books
• Ad Age: Does Apple’s IPad Take a Bite Out of Web Advertising?
• Master of Magazine Design, on How iPad Will Revolutionize the Discipline