I was sitting on my couch the other day, and I had an epiphany. I was watching an epic crime-fighting show, and saw this come across my DVR. It was a video showing off Apple’s noise cancelling microphone and about how it makes this mini-orchestra so much quieter so you can talk, as seen below.

Immediately, smart aleck that I am, I shot off this tweet –

But then something occurred to me –

And then I had this exchange –

Seriously. It really is marketing genius. Every smart phone worth talking about in the world has a noise canceling microphone. But nobody talks about it. It’s just there. The masses don’t know how it works, but Apple not only points it out, they make it seem magical. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, they are the only ones doing stuff like this.

Not only that, but Apple has been doing this under our noses for years. Take this 2009 example –

Here is an iPhone, doing what Palm and Blackberry have been doing for a decade. As a matter of fact, I believe I uttered those very words when I first saw this commercial 4 years ago. But looking back, neither Palm nor Blackberry advertised those features either. And yet, here’s this iPhone, and it’s working like magic.

Now, I don’t want to call Apple ‘revolutionary’ or anything. But they really are doing something right here. Advertising features that the geek world take absolutely 100% for granted, but that the general populace don’t generally know about is genius. They’re not telling you they do anything different than anyone else. But they’re telling you about it

Samsung on the other hand, takes a different strategy – telling the world what their phone does, but that the iPhone doesn’t. It is effective, but it seems cheap and petty at the same time. What they’ve been doing has been working remarkably well for them, so who am I to argue? But maybe an email showing off the lock screen might be called for down the line. Show different levels of protection – pin vs. swipe vs. draw, for example.

Other manufacturers might do well to take notice of Apple’s marketing strategy and make it a point to show off their features which maybe other platforms do, but no one talks about. Maybe HTC’s marketing should talk about pulling contacts from different sources into one contact list. Maybe LG can point out the multi-tasking ribbon. These are just two small examples of features taken for granted, but no one talks about. What are some of the more mundane features you might push if you were an OEM – be it Apple, Nokia, or someone else? Or do you think OEM’s should stick to the flashy, chicks-dig-the-long-ball kind of stuff? Sound off in the comments and let us know.

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