Why the iPhone will transform business promotion

To the victor go the spoils. Or, figure out technology or die.
If you thought the Internet changed the way business communicates and sells, the iPhone will make the 10-year growth of the Internet look like a pre-global warming glacier shift.
The iPhone and the corresponding technology applications that will follow will create far more compelling and transformational opportunities for businesses to communicate their services and products – via video, instantly, and through a range of options – podcasts, Internet, e-mail and YouTube.
If you don’t get all the hype – you will. Grab the phone of an early adopter and experience the range of media options. Fail to understand the possibilities and it is analogous to being a manufacturer and continuing to claim that China will never be a threat.
Reports put estimated sales of the iPhone at approximately 200,000 phones during the initial weekend, and sales may exceed 5 million by the end of the year. Regardless of the sales number, the device creates a new relationship between consumers and communication media – a deeper, comprehensive relationship that is not replaceable, only expandable.
Yes, there are weaknesses, but they are temporary – the known functionality will only continue to grow. Sure, right now only one carrier can be used, but that will be resolved as the phone is unlocked and the range of carrier choices further drives the pace of adoption.
I am not Apple junky – a PC man true and true. No stock ownership either. Cynics may claim the device is no more than a phone with bells and whistles, just like back in the 1940s those TVs weren’t much more than radio with some poor-quality picture.
It is far more.
The iPhone and its successor devices will not only reinvent the relationship between “man and machine,” but the relationship between people, and thus the opportunity for businesses to communicate value. In as little as three years, one in four Americans may be utilizing a fully integrated device like the iPhone, and there will be endless opportunities for business:
• Video is now accessible on demand via the Internet – for those want to demonstrate a product or tell a story, the limitations are now gone. Borrow an iPhone and view the resolution quality and of the presentation of the YouTube video platform on the device – if you can’t see the business potential, close shop, let your workers go, and get your Postal Service application ready.
• Consumers will be buying billions of dollars of products and services from their “phone” rather than their laptop or desktop. Just as laptops made desktops seem dated and bulky, these devices will change our expectations. Not only will commerce be anytime, anyplace, and wireless – it will become the norm.
• Business and consumer Web sites need to be rethought – how they will be viewed in the browser of a phone in which the screen quality far exceeds existing computer screens, thus creating tremendous opportunity to communicate quality and excellence, yet the screen is only six square inches.
• Everyone from health care organizations to supermarkets needs to comprehend the possibilities. The health care organization can post workout sessions or create integrated calculators, and consumers can access it anywhere. Supermarkets can post a cooking show and then integrate it into a commerce function that allows the consumer to order the ingredients. On the way home, the order is picked up and ready to go.
I won’t even go into how the health care organization and the supermarket could team up to build a healthy diet – allow consumers to watch it on their ride home, order it from their device and then get sent an e-mail about its nutritional value.
For every change, businesspeople can take one of two routes – mutter that this is a passing fad (just like those gosh darn mechanical horses) or seek to find the ways to leverage the chaos of opportunity to elevate their business, improve their profitability and create new value to customers. •
Joshua N. Fenton is CEO of The Fenton Group, an advertising, marketing and public relations firm in Providence.