September 07, 2007 | Friday

iPhone price drop and time-sensitive PPC

By Jackie Danicki - Blogger  in Marketing |News |PPC |Search Engines |Google

Nokia’s marketing department took a leaf out of Latitude’s own book yesterday when it reacted quickly to news that Apple is dropping the price of iPhones by £100 after only two months on the market. Making the most of current events in search buying is a tactic employed to great success by Latitude’s search experts on a frequent basis, and one that pays off if used correctly. Here’s the play-by-play, complete with screenshots of the PPC combat.

Nokia bid on the search terms iphone price drop so that an ad for their new mobile social network appeared in the Google results page with a sympathetic message ("Sorry early adopters...").


iphone price drop search strategy

Does this mean that disgruntled iPhone owners will be flocking to Mosh? Perhaps not. But those aren’t the only people who would be searching for information on the price drop.

As soon as Nokia’s move got coverage in the tech press, Apple responded with a clever PPC manoeuver of its own - this one congratulating late iPhone adopters:


apple nokia iphone price drop google battle

Both ads quickly disappeared, and certainly Apple’s move was more of a quick notice-grabber than part of any marketing strategy. In the end, Nokia got even more coverage than it bargained for, and Apple looked to have something of a sense of humour about itself - truly a win-win for both companies. (Though Apple still has the delicate matter of dealing with those angry early adopters...)

UPDATE: I guess Apple doesn’t have such a sense of humour about itself, or fast reflexes - they were not the ones who bought that paid ad on Google after all.

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