IphonetodayThe iPhone goes on sale today, which you probably knew.  Do you remember seeing any ads for it?  TV?  Print?  Banners?

I’ve seen some paid keywords on Google.  Given the amount of buzz, hype, anticipation around the launch – why even bother?  (unless you’re marketing Blackberries.)  Today I got an email with the image at left.  Search ads and email – that’s it.  Compare that to the consumer-generated content around the product:  on YouTube, Flickr, and in blogs.

Here’s what brand monitoring experts have to say about the launch:

– Matt Hurst at Microsoft predicts the topic will garner 1% of blog discussion today.  Looks like he’s right.
– Nielsen Buzzmetrics indicates positive sentiment around features.  Relevant Noise disagrees.
– BrandIntel points out that although discussion levels are high, purchase intent remains neutral.

So it seems as if we have a Subservient Chicken question here:  lots of buzz, but what about sales?  At minimum, the iPhone is already a huge success for the Apple brand and time will tell us about the bottom line…