Apple and Kanye to Launch Products on the Same Day

The question for this upcoming Friday is which line will you be standing in, the one for a new iPhone or the one for new kicks from Kanye West’s Yeezy line of Adidas trainers?

Both icons are going head to head on Friday, selling their products at the same time.

“If you walk down the street next weekend it will be hard to know if the line is for an iPhone or the next sneaker drop,” remarked Adam Bain, former chief operating officer at Twitter. He added, “Part of the allure is that they are hard to find and hard to acquire . . . It’s the exact same mentality.”

“You are buying into the experience. You want a product that is providing certain utility or functionality but also makes you feel part of something larger than the single product itself,” he explained. “The strategy is to create a sense of urgency, that this is a limited edition item that is not going to be available in the future.”

It was just last week that Apple’s Tim Cook introduced the new iPhones.

“Yeezy will hit a billion dollars this year,” said Kanye West on Twitter earlier this year. “It is a unicorn on its way to becoming a decacorn.” West has said that this Friday’s drop is the “largest drop ever.”

“Apple is not a tech company, it’s a luxury brand,” said Scott Galloway, professor of marketing at the New York University Stern School of Business. “Just as Apple copied Louis Vuitton, you’re going to see Nike and Adidas copy Apple.”

“With Apple products, you line up for a product you are using 157 times a day,” said Bain. “The irony about the sneaker drops is a big percentage of people lining up aren’t actually going to wear the shoe — they will keep it in the closet.”

Disclaimer: We have no position in Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and have not been compensated for this article.