I’m Pretty Sure Apple Made #Bendgate Up...

There’s no question that “Bendgate” has driven an incredible amount of attention to the iPhone 6 Plus device.

First, let me, the consumer, get this straight: The issue is that with approximately 55 lbs of human force on the frame of this beautiful purchase, it’ll bend. But once we get over this Bendgate fad, is anyone actually going to exert 55 lbs of force on it? (Apparently plenty of people have. Congrats, you’re now in the Guinness Book of World Records for strongest palms. Go join the circus, superhands.).

Seriously though, this seems like a fairly easy fix. Exert 54 lbs of pressure or less. Got it.

Next up on the list of ‘issues’: If I wear tight pants, there are increased odds of warping. Oh darn, now I’ll never have the opportune time to wear my ASOS Skinny Denim. Sorry hipsters, you might need a clip belt, but for the rest of us whose pants don’t feel like I have a small child hugging each leg, this is truly, truly not a concern.

In all seriousness, though, I have to admit I wasn’t necessarily a happy camper watching the “iPhone 6 Plus Bend Test” on YouTube (52 million views and counting). I was concerned there might actually be a problem with a product I a) was extremely excited about, and b) had already pre-ordered. #consumer

However, did #Bendgate deter me from purchasing? Absolutely not. Because my conclusion was that if I’m not using my HulkHands to warp it or skinny jeans to sit on it, it’s probably not going to bend. Plus (see what I did there?), there’s always the obvious solution: put a case on it. Speaking of which, did you know Gresso made such a case for $2,000? If anyone has one, please reach out to me. I have an angel investment opportunity you do not want to miss out on.

The point is this: There isn’t really anything wrong with the iPhone 6 Plus. But the idea that there is created a frenzy made for a pretty insane amount of press: A Google News search for “Apple Bendgate” results in over 50,000 articles. Combine that with the over 70,000 tweets in the past 30 days, 52M+ YouTube impressions, and traditional TV press ‘covering’ the issue, and the reach was astronomical, easily nearing 100M impressions.

In other words, what was the real impact of #Bendgate? Apple went viral.

For all of you fine digital media execs and practitioners, you know better than I that going viral is the holy grail for cost-effective direct response marketing. If Apple (or any other tech firm in the consumer space) were to work up a media plan to generate the coverage, Likes, re-tweets, articles, traffic and sales response they received from #Bendgate, it would have been quite expensive, without any guarantee of the measurable success that resulted from this viral ‘controversy.’

Put into a dollars perspective, consider what the average CPM, cost-per-click and related campaign flights cost these days, whether from the major search engines, social networks, display media providers, television, radio, print or other major media outlets. Even if pricing had been discounted, a $30 CPM rate for 100 million impressions is still $3 million, solid, not including production costs for the ad campaign materials.

Realistically, if you also factor in amortized labor and overhead to create and execute such multi-channel marketing campaigns, Apple would have spent well beyond $4 million had they intended for #Bendgate to happen as a purpose-built media blitz.

That is a nice win for the Cupertino team.

Not just in the world of social media. Check out the effect of all this (free) exposure on Apple’s stock price:

In other words, September 23rd (#Bendgate) turned out to be pretty good day for Apple -- they had their best closing price since Sept 2nd.

All I can say is, I’m fairly certain someone over there at Apple is pretty pleased with him/herself. There was almost definitely a super-secret conversation that went something like this:

Apple Employee Who Deserves a Raise: We should leak to the public that the 6 Plus can be bent.

Skeptical But Open Executive: Justify?

Employee: When people think there’s something ‘wrong’ with the product, they’ll share it like absolute banshees. We’ll get global exposure and zillions of free impressions. We could potentially get our best Q4 showing ever, prior to the holidays. The best part? We’ll have a funny hashtag to jab Bill Gates and MSFT… and no one will ever know. I’ve got it ready right here: #bendgate

*Long pause. Apple Employee Who Deserves A Raise holds breath.*

Executive: Proceed.

Yep. That's exactly how it happened. Can't fool me, Apple. Someone over there is on a bender and it's someone on this list:

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Disclosure: This “perspective” comes from an Apple fanboy -- always have been. Now that they’re up to speed that “bigger is a little better”, I might go as far as saying I might be a fanboy for life. I definitely will if I get freebies for writing this post. Please find our mailing address at the bottom of our site.

Tom is Founder & CEO of OpiaTalk, the social shopping widget for retailers. OpiaTalk releases a time-sensitive promo on your site once a certain amount of visitors click, and also drives opted-in leads. Our latest client is seeing up to 19% in-widget conversions (nope, not a typo). Contact us at [email protected].