Test Drive a new iMac...

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
I was introduced to the Macintosh by the test drive program. I remember my dad bringing one home for a week, and then saving for some time (the Macintosh was about $5000 back then).



I think Apple needs to reintroduce this program. It would be a surefire way to hook a good chunk of the other 95%. With their new iMac, perhaps a little program that walks new users through all they can do - burn CDs, DVDs. They could bundle it with digital camera/videocam rentals, show iPhoto in action.



Since they've only got about 25 stores now, they would need to extend this to their VAR partners, etc. I would wait until June/July. Ramp up production on the new iMacs, so they have about 250,000 or extra in the channel. At 1 week each, they could introduce about 1,000,000 people a month to the iMac. Doing it before the school season would allow them to capitalize on parents/etc, who are considering purchases for school. They could do a similar thing with the iBook.



By Oct/Nov, it would be in full swing, hitting right for the Christmas buying cycle. By the end of the year, some 5-6 million new people would have had a weeks experience with the iMac.



I couldn't find another topic on this, what do people think? Is the timing right for Apple to launch a new Test Drive program?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 7
    bradbowerbradbower Posts: 1,068member
    Stupendous idea! Apple should bring that back. If they did it before, they can surely do it again.
  • Reply 2 of 7
    emaneman Posts: 7,204member
    When did Apple do this? Also, how did it work?
  • Reply 3 of 7
    Well, I was pretty young when it happened, so my memory might be a bit off. As I remember it, they did it with the original Macintosh (although when we finally got ours it was the Fat Mac). I can't remember exactly how long the trial was for, but I think it was either a week or maybe as long as a month. I can't remember if we picked it up from a dealer or got it mailed direct from Apple. It was a pretty cool thing though.



    The biggest challenge I see with this program is that AAPL will have to take a moderate sized inventory hit to make it happen. It'll probably cost them about $250 million (that's a lot of dineros) to run the program for a year. But I don't think the iMac will be updated any time soon, and if they even get a 10% take rate it will increase their sales by 500,000 units this year.



    I think with proper qualification, follow up sales calls, etc., they could get a 25-50% take rate. This would mean an additional 2-3 million units this year. Think about what that would mean to the bottom line.



    They needed to do this with the original Mac because it was so new, so different, people needed to be shown it to believe it.



    I think that if people are shown the new iMac, get to play with it (and a camera, videocam, etc) for a week (maybe two?) they will take to it like crazy.



    Whaddya think, we should start a petition?
  • Reply 4 of 7
    bradbowerbradbower Posts: 1,068member
    [quote]Originally posted by Pendrake:

    <strong>Whaddya think, we should start a petition? </strong><hr></blockquote>



    Please don't, it'll most certainly fail like all the petitions do, if you take that route. <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />
  • Reply 5 of 7
    macaddictmacaddict Posts: 1,055member
    This idea was spawned by Sculley, that crazy man from Pepsi (actually, I like him, but many don't), and he got the idea from the Pepsi challenge program that they worked on.



    Long story short, it was a horrible failure. Featured in the "blunders" section of Apple Confidential, it says that the returned units had to be sold as open box units for less than the proper price, few people bought Macs, and many were damaged in the process. Not good...works for sugar water, not for computers.
  • Reply 6 of 7
    Instead of selling the returned boxes, what if they just reinstalled the OS, and shipped them to the next try-and-buy customer. If they used the high-end iMac for this, the initial pool of computers could be reused for at least a couple of years.



    I'm interested in knowing how this was considered a failure. The Lisa was a failure, nobody knew about it, it had very little grassroots support.



    The original Mac, which this program promoted, went on to be a huge success. The pure street level awareness it created was huge. I guess the only thing is awareness isn't a huge issue for Apple these days, but overcoming PC conformism is. Most PC users (see ZDNet David Coursey as a prime example) who actually use a Mac for a decent period of time, switch. I think we just need to get them using them...
  • Reply 7 of 7
    matsumatsu Posts: 6,558member
    Yeah, those machies would probably take all kinds of beating.



    Apple Stores?



    Some people think that if the stores only manage to break even, that alone makes a better advertisment for macs that the traditional print/media ads.



    Try before you buy. Apple stores seem to have a LOT of room. They could probably throw together a cyber-cafe where you could sit down at a machine for an hour or two and actually do some real work. No sales pressure, just software demos and tech help, and maybe even 'how to' seminars on things ranging from iMovie to Maya. I guess mac stores are kinda like this -- gee, I wish there was one here in Toronto for me to visit, hmmm, Steve, you listening?



    Perhaps schools could be offered better deals in iMacs and iBooks? The Henrico County plan seems like a good way to sneak a mac into the household where maybe mom and dad will give a try when junior isn't surfing porn?



    Seems like the spirit of Test Drive is alive, but it is now better concieved than before.
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