Publicity Blast

爆炸式宣傳

Over the years Steve Jobs would become the grand master of product launches. In the case of the Macintosh, the astonishing Ridley Scott ad was just one of the ingredients. Another part of the recipe was media coverage. Jobs found ways to ignite blasts of publicity that were so powerful the frenzy would feed on itself, like a chain reaction. It was a phenomenon that he would be able to replicate whenever there was a big product launch, from the Macintosh in 1984 to the iPad in 2010. Like a conjurer, he could pull the trick off over and over again, even after journalists had seen it happen a dozen times and knew how it was done. Some of the moves he had learned from Regis McKenna, who was a pro at cultivating and stroking prideful reporters. But Jobs had his own intuitive sense of how to stoke the excitement, manipulate the competitive instincts of journalists, and trade exclusive access for lavish treatment.

多年來，史蒂夫·喬布斯已成為產品發布大師。以麥金塔電腦的發布為例，雷德利·斯科特的驚人廣告僅僅是產品發布的一部分，還有一部分是媒體報道。喬布斯知道如何激發媒體進行爆炸式宣傳，這種宣傳方式威力強大，會像連鎖反應一樣越來越瘋狂。只要有重要的產品發布，喬布斯就會經常重復使用這一方法，從1984年的麥金塔電腦到2010年的iPad發布都是如此，這已經成為一種現象。他就像一個魔術師，能夠一遍又一遍地施用相同的伎倆，即便記者們已經目睹多次，也知道事情會如何發展。有一些竅門是他從里吉斯·麥肯納那里學來的，麥肯納擅長引導和激發自負的記者。但是，在如何挑起記者的興奮之情、操縱新聞工作者的競爭本能和通過透露獨家新聞獲得豐厚回報方面，喬布斯也有著自己的直覺。

In December 1983 he took his elfin engineering wizards, Andy Hertzfeld and Burrell Smith, to New York to visit Newsweek to pitch a story on “the kids who created the Mac.” After giving a demo of the Macintosh, they were taken upstairs to meet Katharine Graham, the legendary proprietor, who had an insatiable interest in whatever was new. Afterward the magazine sent its technology columnist and a photographer to spend time in Palo Alto with Hertzfeld and Smith. The result was a flattering and smart four-page profile of the two of them, with pictures that made them look like cherubim of a new age. The article quoted Smith saying what he wanted to do next: “I want to build the computer of the 90’s. Only I want to do it tomorrow.” The article also described the mix of volatility and charisma displayed by his boss: “Jobs sometimes defends his ideas with highly vocal displays of temper that aren’t always bluster; rumor has it that he has threatened to fire employees for insisting that his computers should have cursor keys, a feature that Jobs considers obsolete. But when he is on his best behavior, Jobs is a curious blend of charm and impatience, oscillating between shrewd reserve and his favorite expression of enthusiasm: ‘Insanely great.’”

1983年12月，他帶著自己的天才工程師安迪·赫茨菲爾德和伯勒爾·史密斯，前往紐約走訪《新聞周刊》，想讓對方寫一篇關于“創造麥金塔電腦的小伙子們”的報道。在進行了麥金塔電腦的演示之后，他們被帶上樓同凱瑟琳·格雷厄姆（KatherineGraham）見面。格雷厄姆是媒體界的一位傳奇人物，她對所有新生事物都充滿莫大的興趣。之后，《新聞周刊》雜志派遣自己的科技專欄作家和一位攝影師前往帕洛奧圖，與赫茨菲爾德和史密斯共度一段時光。最后發表的報道共4頁，介紹了這兩位工程師，溢美之情盡顯，此外還配上兩人在家中的圖片，令他們看上去就像是新時代的天使。文章援引史密斯的話來表述他接下來要做的事：“我想要打造90年代的計算機，明天就開始?！蔽恼逻€描寫了兩人的那位老板的反復無常和領袖魅力?！皢滩妓褂袝r會發怒，髙聲為自己的想法辯護，但并不會動不動就咆哮；喬布斯認為光標鍵已經過時，有傳言稱，他曾因員工堅持表示蘋果電腦應該有光標鍵而威脅要開除對方。但是，當喬布斯處于最佳狀態時，他是魅力和急躁的奇特融合體，時而含蓄，時而酷斃了。而‘酷斃了’（InsanelyGreat）正是他最喜歡用來表達自己激情的短語?！?/span>

The technology writer Steven Levy, who was then working for Rolling Stone, came to interview Jobs, who urged him to convince the magazine’s publisher to put the Macintosh team on the cover of the magazine. “The chances of Jann Wenner agreeing to displace Sting in favor of a bunch of computer nerds were approximately one in a googolplex,” Levy thought, correctly. Jobs took Levy to a pizza joint and pressed the case: Rolling Stone was “on the ropes, running crummy articles, looking desperately for new topics and new audiences. The Mac could be its salvation!” Levy pushed back. Rolling Stone was actually good, he said, and he asked Jobs if he had read it recently. Jobs said that he had, an article about MTV that was “a piece of shit.” Levy replied that he had written that article. Jobs, to his credit, didn’t back away from the assessment. Instead he turned philosophical as he talked about the Macintosh. We are constantly benefiting from advances that went before us and taking things that people before us developed, he said. “It’s a wonderful, ecstatic feeling to create something that puts it back in the pool of human experience and knowledge.”

當時還在《滾石》雜志工作的科技作家斯蒂芬·列維（StevenLevy）來采訪喬布斯，喬布斯立即要求該雜志將麥金塔團隊登在封面上。“簡·溫納（JajinWerner）同意換下斯?。≒olice樂隊主唱）而讓一群電腦狂人登上封面的可能性幾乎為零。”列維如此認為。他是對的。喬布斯帶列維去吃比薩，談論對麥金塔電腦團隊的報道：“《滾石》雜志的處境岌岌可危，凈登些爛文章，它正在拼命發掘新的話題和受眾。麥金塔電腦就是《滾石》的救命稻草！”列維反駁說，《滾石》雜志事實上很好，并問喬布斯最近真的讀過《滾石》嗎？喬布斯說自己在飛機上讀了上面一篇關于MTV的文章，他認為這篇文章就是“一坨狗屎”。列維回答說，那正是自己寫的文章。值得贊揚的是，喬布斯并沒有轉換話題停止評論，盡管他確實換了個目標，開始抨擊《時代》雜志一年前對他的“肆意捏造”。接著，在談論麥金塔電腦的時候，他又變得豁達了。他表示，人類一直都在從超前的知識進步中獲益，并且在使用超前者所研發出來的東西?！澳軌騽撛斐鲈谌祟惤涷灪椭R史上占有一席之地的東西，是一種美妙和令人欣喜若狂的感覺。”

Levy’s story didn’t make it to the cover. But in the future, every major product launch that Jobs was involved in—at NeXT, at Pixar, and years later when he returned to Apple—would end up on the cover of either Time, Newsweek, or Business Week.

列維的報道并沒有登上《滾石》的封面。但是后來，喬布斯參與的所有主要產品的發布——無論是在NeXT、皮克斯，還是多年后重回蘋果公司——都登上了《時代》雜志、《新聞周刊》或《商業周刊》的封面。