Anyone paying attention to their social media channels during Monday's keynote from Tim Cook that launched Apple's latest products will have spotted Cupertino dominating the prime advertising positions on Twitter. You could argue that this was Apple finally 'getting' social media advertising and using it to best effect, but there's another view... Apple had no choice if it wanted to stop its rivals hijacking the event.
If Apple had not made the purchase, its rivals would have swung in with some disruptive counter-advertising and taken the full concentration of the spotlight away from the new MacBook and the Apple Watch. In essence, Apple looked at Twitter and thought 'buy the spots or somebody else will.'
With such an intense focus on the wrist-based wearable, diverting even a small percentage of eyes and thoughts could prove valuable to a smaller player. And in the wearable market, it feels like every player is a smaller player when put up against the expected dominance of the Apple Watch. Companies such as Samsung, LG, Motorola, and Sony are all working with Google's Android Wear to provide a vision of wearable computing. I would argue that Pebble (which is likely the current smartwatch leader thanks to over one million sales of its Pebble watches) was already spoiling to be the counter-programming with the successful launch of its Kickstarter project for its next generation Pebble Time and Pebble Time Steel.
Apple has been forced into a 'defensive' move towards advertising on Twitter interesting, through the use of promoted tweets and purchasing search results for specify (albeit unadventurous) keywords. Where there is scarcity there is value, and where there is value there is profit to be made. In terms of a product launch with worldwide interest, with everyone looking for information, whoever controls that channel can leverage it to best effect.
This is where Apple became subservient to Twitter, as most advertisers are. Just as the initial announcement of the Apple Watch was made in September so Tim Cook could introduce the hardware instead of it leaking from the supply chain, this was only one moment to explain the software story of the Apple Watch without any interference. Apple decided that keeping the focus on its watch was more valuable than the cost of Twitter's key advertising spots.
Keeping the opposition quiet was Apple's biggest win with Twitter. While Tim Cook is not going to need that sort of suppression for some time, the continued back and forth in many areas of business and marketing will feel the same pressure every day, no matter the company or the product involved.
And Twitter will be more than happy to sell them the advertising spots.
