Product Marketing: Kindle, The UniPad
The importance of knowing the market you can own outright.
I bought my wife a Kindle for Christmas. Shhhhhh. Nah I guess you don’t really need to ‘shhhhh’, I mean it is probably unlikely that she’ll make it here to Inflection Methods to read any time soon. I don’t take it personally she has a household to run and with five children, three of which under the age of five, her job in infinitely more difficult than mine. She does love to read though, so perhaps one day she’ll learn I wrote about her gift before I actually gave it to her. But that isn’t the point. You see my wife is an even later adopter of technology than I. (Yes I admit it, I’m a late adopter. . .but I console myself with the thought that the reality of being a late adopter forces me to take a pragmatic look at the practicality of technology). It is a risk for me to give her technology, but since she is a reader I figure she is perfect for the Kindle.
She’d never ever go for the iPad and quite likely will never go for the constant 
consumption of digital media until it is so ubiquitous that she will have no alternative. But the Kindle is different. She is a voracious reader, tearing into books and disposing of them in a matter of days if not hours. She picks them up without even a second thought, reads things in just about every category, and even stays on top of what our teenage daughter is reading by reading those books as well. Daily she grabs her coffee and then ritually sits in front of the family PC to quickly pursue the news sites and look at a couple of emails. She reads whenever she gets a moment, and on those not so rare occasions when one of the children decides they need their mother for one reason or another in the middle of the night, she frequently totes her book and book light with her to help get the matter settled.
So me being the ever watchful husband and truly trying to know my wife better with ever passing day after blissful day of marriage, I decided that she would benefit significantly from owning an electronic reading device such as the Kindle. I’m fairly certain she’ll love it. Especially when I show her how Instapaper works and how she will be able to save articles to read later on her new Kindle. But wait.. .what does this have to do with anything?
Well I came across this piece on techcrunch the other day regarding whether or not the iPad is eroding kindle market share. What is interesting in the article is that it uses this chart below to question whether or not these numbers actually mean anything at all. The Author, Devin Coldewey, comes to the conclusion that comparison between the two is “a foolish game” because they are two distinctly different devices.
Case in point, Mrs. Capperella is not in the market for an iPad and probably won’t be for at least the next five years but as of December 25th of this year she’ll enter the ranks of the eReader market. Here in lies the hook for the post. Now that, knowingly or not, Amazon has driven its device to those that fall into a late adopter category it seems that their message needs to adjust accordingly.
Consider how they are pitching the device for this holiday season, “Thinner. Lighter. Faster. Better” Hmmmm. That might be a good message for those must-haves who are frequently lining up to but the next and the best and the most latest release until the next release of any piece of technology. But is the Kindle in that market? After all won’t those types be quicker to pay more attention to the next slickest and sleekest offering from Apple? Also won’t they be more likely to buy the next version anyway because “lighter,thinner, faster, better” is the main criteria they use to depart with their disposable income? I don’t know, I think so but I’m the one writing the post here, I suppose you need to ask yourself what you think.
If the answer is yes isn’t Amazon missing an incredible opportunity to distinctly, uniquely, and forever carve out its complete ownership of the eReader market? Aggressively stating that the market has always existed, will always exist and will continue to grow. . . and, perhaps the most important part, position themselves as the un-iPad? I have seen cursory efforts to do this here and there, but it doesn’t seem as though it is a core element of their market position right now. The strongest effort so far seems to be ‘you can read the kindle in direct sunlight’. But again, that message seems to be directed to those ‘must-haves’. You can hear them bragging about it now “I have the iPad and the Kindle because I like to flaunt my technology on the beach and the Kindle can be read in direct sunlight”
The message has distinct buyers like Mrs Capperella (or gift receivers in this case) who don’t care a wit about what the kindle can and cannot do. They just like to read. And they will love the convenience of reading with the Kindle. They will love the opportunity to read more with the Kindle. The will love the ease with which they can use this new gadget to read. Amazon, in my opinion, has an opportunity to own the reader market for the foreseeable future, but it is going to require better messaging directed right at the readers. Be on the lookout for shifts in how Amazon is evolving that message to see if this is the direction they will take.
And please, not a word to Mrs. Capperella.
Merry Christmas!
