Liam Dann: Spinners and losers amid marketing madness

In the world of public relations and marketing it has been a week of corporate coups and disasters.

When it comes to creating hype and capturing public imagination no one tops Apple's Steve Jobs. Everyone is talking about the iPad.

So, is it a revolutionary device that will change the way we live? Probably not. Even if it does prove extremely popular it is only presenting us with a new way to consume existing technologies.

No doubt it is part of an evolutionary shift towards the integration of mobile computing into our daily lives. But while the early adopters will make a lot of noise, the appeal of mobile computing is still lost on a large, conservative chunk of the population.

Outside of the blogosphere meaningful social change takes longer than tech companies would have us believe. Let's not forget the excitement of the ill-fated dotcom boom 10 years ago. That was based on expectations that the web was about to change the world in ways that it is only just starting to now.

But in Apple's defence, the iPad is awfully shiny. Whether you are marketing to humans or trying to catch fish, there appear to be biologically hardwired reasons why this is a good starting point. Jobs understands these things very well.

Less shiny but also welcomed as a revolutionary event within its industry was the unveiling of Air New Zealand's cuddle-class seats.

Again commercial success is far from guaranteed. Like the iPad the lie-flat seats may create a lucrative new niche or they may fall into a gap between two well-established categories. But because Air NZ has done something bold and innovative (and because we are all shareholders), let's hope it is the former.

Either way, from a marketing perspective, the launch was a coup for Rob Fyfe and his team. It grabbed headlines in nearly every major newspaper - from the Wall Street Journal to the Sun and USA Today. All the coverage conveyed the idea that Air New Zealand was a creative company that has passenger comfort at the forefront of its thinking. Like Jobs, Fyfe is a very savvy marketing man.

At the other end of the scale it has been a terrible week for companies beginning with T. The momentum Telecom created with the successful launch of the XT mobile network stalled after its second major outage in two months. This time customers are furious. The brand was built on a high-speed motoring image fuelled by Top Gear's Richard Hammond. For now it is broken down on the side of the road.

But Telecom's problems aren't as bad as those facing car manufacturer Toyota. Having built its brand on reliability rather than speed, the Japanese giant has just had to recall 2.4 million cars. The problem is that the accelerator pedal in certain models sticks to the floor when the driver puts his or her foot down. For the record, Toyota says the problem doesn't affect any models sold in New Zealand.

Unlike Telecom, Toyota shares have been hammered - falling 15 per cent this week.

So there are big challenges ahead for both companies. How they handle issues of compensation and address complex technical problems will determine how quickly the damage done this week is reversed.