As the saying goes, never discuss politics or religion in mixed company, you'll either get upstaged or be left cleaning a mess. Wait, that's the one about sharing a scene with kids and animals.
Either way, I promise this post has nothing to do with the policies of the sitting President; it has only to do with the Obama brand. The brand that for several reasons was regarded as the marketing story of 2008. So, leave your red, blue, purple or green policy preferences aside, and let's take a look at 3 reasons why the President might consider buying an iPad as a symbol of solidarity after its beleaguered launch.
1. Impossible Expectations
Short of being able to perform actual magic, I'm not sure what the iPad could have delivered that would not have left some Apple fans feeling disappointed. For months prior to the announcement, bloggers speculated about what wonders the Apple Tablet might deliver. Even as I write this, there's a stack of mail next to me and the TIME Magazine cover asks, "Will Apple's iPad Save The Media?" As in, the whole Media?! (The conclusion by the way is, uh ... well, it's actually quite compelling.)
Compelling arguments and predictions aside, a single product saving an entire industry is nearly as ludicrous as expecting one man to change decades and decades of entrenched culture within the Federal Government.
But, here is where I think the iPad and the Obama brand are both partly to blame for their own (possibly temporary) misfortunes. Yes, a good amount of the hype is a result of the fan base daring to dream, expecting something absolutely otherworldly and hoisting those dreams upon mere mortals.
But.
It's not as if they weren't asked to.
In Steve Jobs' own words, the iPad is a "truly magical and revolutionary product." Steve, the iPad is really, really cool. It really is and I would love to have one. I would. But, it's basically a giant iPod Touch that reads books.
As for President Obama, we'll all recall that "Change" was a central theme of the campaign. There are certainly some excellent examples of President Obama living up to the brand promises of the Obama campaign. But, when the bar is set incredibly high, by the fans and by the Chief Executives alike, some amount of under-delivery is inevitable.
But these are people who are serious about influencing the world around them, and brands that are serious about growth and influence want fans and lots of them. Not simply repeat customers who return to the product "just 'cause" (though nobody's complaining about that!), but truly enthusiastic advocates.
However, the flip side of having a fan base that will, on occasion, transition from simply being intensely loyal to hysterically rabid is that fairly unreasonable expectations become quite common.
2. Blind Opposition
I think it's a safe bet to say that if President Obama rescued a child drowning in the Potomac, there would be a talk radio host somewhere (and a couple thousand Facebook status updates) ranting about how he should have been in the Oval Office negotiating a jobs bill.
Likewise, if the iPad had managed to deliver actual magic, there'd be some people saying with a scoff, "Sure, but do we really need magic?"
What do you do with blind opponents? As viscerally satisfying as it would be to just completely ignore them, it literally pays to swallow your medicine and take steps to nullify their complaints. I think the $499 model of the iPad with built-in Wi-Fi and USB sync (meaning access to downloads without an AT&T contract) is Apple speaking reasonably to the people in the "middle of the aisle".
Blind opponents of Apple want something like a $189 model that doesn't have to go through iBooks or iTunes for content and can connect to any carrier's 3G network. Basically, they want something totally "other" than what Apple has set out to build. That's just not going to happen.
The similarities for the Obama brand are a bit more combustible, so rather than my bringing up specific policies that are examples of compromise and those that are examples of what I believe to be standing firm for what he and his team have set out to build, let's just pretend that we agree completely! So, think of a few examples of the President speaking reasonably to the middle and a few examples of his administration ignoring the blind opponents. Ok, got a few? ... Yes! I agree completely! Wow, how remarkable that we are on the exact same page with regard to those examples.
Ahem.
3. January 27th Was a Really Big Day
And finally, yes, while the Obama team rescheduled the State of the Union to avoid upsetting Losties, they did manage to schedule it on the same day that Apple would introduce the iPad to the world. Maybe they were hoping that the good vibes from Jobs would carry over in to a SotU focused on, um, jobs. Sorry, had to do it.
Regardless, January 27th was a very important date in iCal at both 1 Infinite Loop and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
An epic launch for the one and something of a relaunch for the other; in both cases, there was a lot riding on those two speeches. For those keeping score at home, Obama was interrupted by more standing ovations, while Jobs got a comfy chair. Advantage: Jobs.
As to the aftermath of their pitches, Apple cannot have been too thrilled that parodies of the product's name were trending topics on Twitter far longer than #iPad itself. The device's generally icy reception in the mainstream is pretty well documented, but Apple's advocates are already rising to its defense (HT @michaelewitt). Truly, it's hard to imagine that the letdown will last and it's easy to image that by the 3rd Generation, the iPad will be every bit the cultural touchstone that the iPod has come to be. Easy to imagine, but not inevitable.
And while the President's remarks were not without some controversy, the relaunch seems to have had the positive affect of bumping his approval rating above 50% after a sour stretch.
So, while Apple will get to see how consumers vote with their dollars when the iPad is available in late March and the Obama team will wait for actual votes; both are hoping to cash in on the upside of brand enthusiasm.