Credit: Kompas.com
About two days ago, someone spotted an under construction store at Indonesia’s Pasaraya Blok M – a shopping center in Jakarta – with a sign that says “Apple Store Open: 16 Juni 2013” complete with Apple’s logo on it (pictured above). We’ve known for quite a while that Apple is indeed going to open an office and perhaps a store too, so will this be the company’s first official Apple Store in the country? Most probably not.
Aulia Masna, chief editor of DailySocial and former editor in chief of Macworld Indonesia argues (as quoted by Kompas) that there are a lot of details that the upcoming store misses. First is that the announcement uses Arial font, which is not the kind of font Apple usually use for its ads. According to AppleGazette, Apple uses Myriad Pro Semibold font.
The second obvious fact is that the store mixes both Indonesian and English language in its announcement. The month of “Juni” is in Indonesian, and Apple wouldn’t do that.
Third mistake is that the sign gives away too much information. IfoAppleStore explains that Apple only acknowledges the location of an upcoming store about seven to 10 days prior to the grand opening – and that’s usually accompanied by an announcement on the retail section of Apple’s site. This store is months away from completion.
Fourth, an Apple official store should have a minimum of 2,000 square meters of space, and the one at Pasaraya is much smaller than that, having around 100 meter squares. Furthermore, Apple wouldn’t open its first official store at a place like Blok M. I don’t have anything against the place, it’s just that you won’t find wealthier Indonesians at that mall. A better spot for an official Apple Store would be Pacific Place mall which has a Lamborghini store on the ground floor.
THIS is what a real Apple store banner looks like, from a new Hong Kong store last year. Image by Casey Lau.
The last mistake, which comes to be the most obvious one too, is the fact that the upcoming Indonesian Apple Store is using a cheap banner. No way does it look like the kind of banners that Apple uses for its upcoming official store announcements (pictured above).
So this looks like an authorized (or unauthorized) reseller of Apple gear, and they are trying to get as much attention from this stunt as possible. And it worked.
As in many other developing countries, there are a lot of intellectual property infringements happening in Indonesia. Should Apple do something about this over-zealous usage of Apple’s logo, Aulia believes the reseller will be issued with a cease and desist order, and will need to have the sign replaced.
Whatever happens, there’s no such thing as bad publicity, right?
 Credit: Kompas.com |
 Credit: Kompas.com |
(Source: Kompas)
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