The New Press Release Model, Invented by Amazon, Put to The Test

Is it real or just for show?

This week, Amazon issued a press release to launch four new Kindle Fire HDX (high end) and HD (entry level) tablets.

This press release, a first to my knowledge for a company of Amazon’s size, consists only of 14 tweets (see below) describing the technical features and functionalities of the new products.

It’s a very different approach from the sophisticated storytelling marketing perfected by Apple, one of Amazon’s main competitors in the tablet market segment. With Amazon, there is no narrative, no hyperbole, no dream. Just raw data.

Amazon’s objective is to create more buzz for the Kindle Fire launch. However, even if it’s ideally suited to social network propagation, this press release model is appropriate neither for all kinds of topics (financial results, strategic announcements, crisis communications, complex products…) nor for all communications styles (see my comment on Apple). This PR innovation rather falls into the category of Jeff Bezos’s beloved experiments.

I could have written this article in tweets, but I still love to write the good old way. 🙂