Have you heard the  breaking news?  Apple’s iPhone is coming out this Friday, June 29th!  Yes… that’s right.  Don’t forget you heard it here first.

Ok… so maybe not.

Unless you’re no longer among the living (in which case I’d have to question your ability to read this), you’ve no doubt at least heard of the iPhone by now.  I can’t remember the last time a gadget of any kind stirred up this much buzz.  Actually… I can.  It was the iPod, another of Apple’s toys.

How do they keep doing it?  How does this company keep turning what are basically electronic devices into global phenomenons?  iPod is a household name.  Even before its launch, iPhone is quickly becoming one.  Is it the technology alone that keeps propelling Apple to center stage?

It’s hard to argue against the cool factor of the iPhone.  I’m sure nitpickers and naysayers could find enough to criticize the phone over.  But even they have to admit that it’s just a very cool phone / PDA / personal computer in your pocket / whatever else they’re calling it.  The technology is undeniably first-rate and newsworthy.

But cool new phones come out all the time.  And while some of them do become wildly popular (think Razr), they don’t usually dominate the news, the blogosphere, and the minds of millions of eager consumers.

Apple’s marketing - which is sometimes so very subtle - is at least partially responsible for the fact that our lives have been taken over with iPhone chatter.  If you know anything about the way Apple usually makes announcements, you’ve already picked up on the fact that the iPhone is different.

In the not-too-distant past, Apple would have kept the iPhone a secret until launch day.  Oh there would be rumors… maybe leaked photos… but nothing official would have come out of Cupertino.  But since the iPod, Apple has been slowly changing gears.  While they still keep a lot of products secret, more and more the company seems to be leaning toward the hype-building, string people along approach to marketing.

How many of you saw the original iPhone announcement and said “wow… that’s gonna be big”?  I’m sure the vast majority of the room thought the same thing.  And here we are a day and a half from launch with people already lined up to get in the doors, a Techmeme frontpage simply dripping with iPhone news (for two days now!), and coverage from every major media/news outlet.

So what has Apple done between announcement day and today to stir this crazy whirlwind of excitement?

For one, they’ve continued to seed us with iPhone tidbits along the way.  They’ve posted videos on their website.  They’ve published a handful of press releases that - realistically - could have been released in one single document.  Why didn’t they do that?  Hype.  Momentum.  Always leaving us wanting more.

And it’s worked brilliantly.  Like I said… the technology is amazing.  But the marketing is at least as good.  But it’s an ever-so-subtle approach and the specifics are hard to pinpoint.  Fortunately, you can still take a few things away from the Apple approach to apply to your own marketing efforts:

1. You have to drink your own koolaid.  Apple doesn’t just want us to think the iPhone is the best toy in the world.  They really think it is.
2. Hype-building:  always leave them wanting more.  If you want to build the hype about a product, pull an Apple and string consumers along slowly over a period of time.  Always make it clear that there’s more than what you’re showing them.  If you’ve ever watched an Apple keynote address you’ll be familiar with the line “One more thing…” that Steve Jobs masterfully plants at what we think will be the end of his presentation on some new product.  And we all sit on the edge of our seats… waiting for that “one more thing”… which is almost always the coolest announcement of the presentation.
3. Less is more:  No whiz-bang-bam iPhone commercials just yet.  Remember the iPod commercials?  They didn’t even show us the faces of the people dancing in them.  But the one thing that stood out was the white iPod headphones.  Don’t let marketing and advertising creative distract from the overall mission:  telling the world your product rocks.

So what do you think the secret to Apple’s success is?  Even if the iPhone is a huge commercial flop you can’t deny the fact that the marketing has been amazing.  How’d they do it?  What can we take from Apple’s playbook to use in our own marketing campaigns?