How to Build Legitimacy in the High-Tech World

For those who have been following the new products announcements at the IFA and CES shows over the past years, you may have noticed the eternal battle between the top brands in the high-tech industry to present the "World's First... " whatever new attribute can be implemented in an electronic device. Lately it has been all about the world's first bendable TV, the world's primary curved Smartphone, the world's first connected washing machine, the world's first 8K screen, UHD OLED display, and so on. Most of them are technologies that won't make it to the general market before several years.

You may be wondering why a lot of these brands choose to reveal to their competitors what their future moves will be, on a market where acting instant and giving the competition no time to adapt is key to keep the lead.

Remember what happened as soon as Samsung launched its first Galaxy S Smartphone back in 2010? Many of those who had seen an iphone4 before blamed them for making a replica and not having invented anything. Now with the iPhone 6 in addition to Apple watch it is Apple's turn to be criticized for following the other brands with larger screens along with round edges. The thing is, early adopters and opinion leaders don't want high-tech brands to follow. They hope them to lead.

Appear as a pioneer brand and a technology expert

So here's what the companies do. They exhibit their target that they can remain ahead of the game thanks to technological achievements, by displaying cutting-edge products, patents and even concepts before everyone else, even if it will take years to make them available on a large scale through mass-produced, market-ready solutions. The desired result is to have the brand name associated with technological innovation, thus making customers and potential clients expect great items from that name in the future.

The effects of that strategy go even beyond creating high expectations for the future inside customers' minds, it also makes them expect great things from the brand's current products - that not surprisingly do not feature the technologies displayed - because many assume that any product bearing the brand's name is as good as the name itself. They assume each product lives up to the brand's popularity, especially the people who are not technology experts and want to rely on safe and simple reference points when coming up with their purchase decision.

Gain massive media coverage

The web is crowded with hundreds of blogs and sites craving for hot information that will help them expand and retain their tech-savvy readers pool, and not a single thing better at it than a breakthrough product with a science-fiction edge to pin at the top of their newsfeed. Allow them to have a bendable tablet screen, a round-shaped Smartwatch or a wireless charging protocol - even if it is simply ongoing research - and they will all jump on the occasion to spread the news to their readers - and the similar blogs who all follow them as well. When the Moto 360 watch by Motorola has been announced earlier this year, it headlined the Google News High-Tech section for days, even though it wasn't likely to come out before 6 months and very little information had been unveiled, all thanks to the number of websites that shared this news.

New technologies that seem to offer a sneak-peak into the future are appropriate to generate buzz, which is hard to induce and even harder to sustain and to monitor in terms of extent, target community and content. But when produced among the right communities, it makes the info spread faster and wider among the population through secondary options - Social media, word of mouth, intra-community media - that increase the effect of traditional media.

Establish future principles

Finally, when a new technology challenges a wider industry of interconnected products, as the HD video framework did with the screen and optical disk markets, just as the UHD screen is doing right now, manufacturers test as early as possible to convince other industry partners to follow their lead, to establish future standards that will cover the widespread adoption of their technology.