Commentary: The Last Pitchman

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Shortly thereafter Jobs was fired, and the company floundered for 12 years, losing its mystique as well as its profits. He returned in 1997 and the rollouts— iMac, iPod, iPhone, iPad—have become self-propagating events in which the media ritualistically attempts to ferret out advance details, and Apple keeps the rabbit in the hat. What made the iPhone 4 launch worth watching was its departure from the usual script. Gizmodo created a global stir on Apr. 19 when it posted a picture of the new phone. "We got it," the blog boasted. "We disassembled it. It's the real thing, and here are all the details."

It's a sign of Jobs' mystique that some people wondered whether the iPhone-on-a-barstool snafu might be a piece of diabolically clever guerrilla marketing designed to stir prelaunch buzz. The hapless engineer who left the prototype in the bar "created a ton of chatter out there," says Dean Crutchfield, senior partner at Method, an agency that advises companies about the care and feeding of their brands. "Whether it was intentional or not, my God did it work! He should get a bonus. It also shows that Apple has a drink once in a while." In other words, even when Jobs fumbles a rollout, he still comes out looking smart.

There was something endearing about seeing Jobs struggle with technical difficulties on June 7. It turns out that even the CEO of Apple can't get his phone to work sometimes. We all know how that feels, especially those of us in bandwidth-challenged metropolises who must rely on AT&T's (T) spotty cellular service. Jobs also got a laugh when he insisted that journalists and bloggers turn off their laptops and stop hogging bandwidth. The media complied, as it so often does when Jobs commands.

Jobs makes all of this look easy. Of course, it's not. Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) chose the same day to present its new smartphone-compatible printers. These are products many of us will soon be using, but the HP event was drowned out by Apple's. HP says its rollout was locked in before Apple's was announced. HP CEO Mark Hurd can't help it if Jobs makes the weather.

With the media landscape so fragmented, stopping the world in its tracks isn't easy anymore. "We sometimes think that in a connected, interactive world, salesmanship is no longer effective," adds Kelly O'Keefe, executive director of the Virginia Commonwealth University Brandcenter, an advertising studies program. "But it's not true. We are still attracted to it. We are looking for it. We need something to believe in. People believe in Apple. They believe in Jobs."

He's the last great pitchman. Until the next great pitchman comes along

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