So, you are a marketing manager at Apple responsible for China where sales are tanking and Android isn’t just dominant, it’s eating the Cupertino kids’ lunch. What do you do? Whether this story is the result of an Apple plant or not, iPhone 5 photos show up in the hands of a top Chinese pop star is a stroke of hype building genius.
Sina Weibo is, if you haven’t heard, the Chinese government’s answer to Twitter and, to a degree, Facebook in a single masterstroke. Even though it’s owned by, in essence, the Chinese Communist Party, its 350 million users are the real power as taste and scandal makers, capable bringing down high officials not to mention anointing culture, business and product winners.
So, when popstar, actor and race car driver DreamerJimmy, a native of Taiwan but huge in China, posts a collage of photos (full-size below) of himself on Sina Weibo holding an iPhone 5, it is bound to get people talking.
How does dude rate? You might also ask how he rated an iPad mini back in 2010.
And, that’s where this story likely founders. Pop star, actor and race car driving DreamerJimmy is an inveterate self promoter and, with the tech world’s chattering class talking incessantly about the iPhone 5, what else would he show up on Sina Weibo holding?
Do you think the iPhone 5 photos DreamerJimmy posted to Sina Weibo are the real deal? In some ways it’s easy to believe that Apple marketing has outdone itself again…
What’s your take?
via The Next Web