In today’s market its hard to keep up with technology, as newer versions and upgrades seem to appear right after you just bought the last one.
This creates a challenge for marketers. They want to deliver the message that the latest product is better, faster, hotter than the last one and that you need it. They also have to protect their existing customers and either make them appreciate their existing product for longer or make upgrading to the newer product more affordable to reward them for their loyalty.
Apple often does this by timing platform upgrades for existing models around the time of new model launches.
This can help make existing products seem less outdated and overshadowed by the release of new products, while still being able to promote the new models.
An example would be the upgrade of the iPhone operating system before the iPhone 4 was released. The iPhone 3G and 3GS received a few great upgrades, such as multitasking, folders and the book store.
This is a very important strategy to get right, as Apple is near to launching the iPhone 5 not very long after the iPhone 4 was released.
It will be interesting to see the approach from some non-tech companies.
