The recent excitement concerning the alleged leaked iPhone pricing from a market research study has got a lot of people thinking they will be saving themselves a couple of hundred bucks come June. Another bunch are up in arms over the poor quality sample advertisement that suggests that it is a fake. FFA believes that more likely than not the research is genuine but the pricing shown is not indicative of Apple’s / Cingular’s plans for the iPhone this June.
It is usual practice for corporations to conduct market research for new products. In the case of the iPhone, the extreme need for secrecy may have minimized the amount of work conducted prior to January’s announcement. Companies have cause for concern about confidentiality especially when using on-line methodologies such as that utilized by PineCone Research. Although most vendors utilize various technologies to make it difficult for respondents to capture the contents of the survey for later unauthorized distribution, the old Print Screen trick or Command-Shift-3 is usually still effective. PineCone has, as recently as November 2006, updated its terms of service to show the following at the end of each survey:-
“As a reminder, you have agreed to maintain the confidentiality of the information that you saw within this interview which includes the description of the product idea. This means you are not allowed to describe this survey content to others outside of your immediate household. You may not post this information online in chat rooms or blogs, print, download or otherwise copy this information without breaching this agreement. Sharing outside any information related to this survey is grounds for legal action.”
This is what has seemed to have happened this time. A few screen shots have been provided to a rumor site to set tongues wagging.
The poor quality of the sample advertisement is typical in this type of research which isn’t actually testing the image or copy but the nature of the offer. In these case, amateur looking mock-ups are par for the course. As for the reduced pricing, we are likely seeing very selective leaking. There were probably various price points being tested in the research in order to provide Apple / Cingular with a basic feel for price sensitivity and some idea of price elasticity of demand. This could be achieved by simply showing respondents different versions of the advert, differing only in iPhone price, whilst asking the same battery of questions after each iteration. FFA’s guess is that the respondent who leaked the screen-shots deliberately chose only one of the lower price point options. For this reason the pricing shown is most likely unrelated to the final pricing we will see in June.
