Of OnePlus Star Wars Edition and Product Marketing Integration

OnePlus star wars theme
OnePlus star wars theme

OnePlus is launching star wars edition of OnePlus 5T and I was quite intrigued by the launch – but then, this happened.

Oneplus 5 just released a star wars themed phone in India. Also received a note from @Sphero that my star wars BB8 doesn't work with @OnePlus_IN 5.
Talk about marketing being totally out of touch with product.

— Pratyush Prasanna (@pratyushp) December 5, 2017


How can you launch a star wars themed phone and not even integrate (even the base devices) with other products that are making cool droids like R2D2 (Sphero BB8 is quite a cool product, by the way).

This is a mere ‘skin’ integration, isn’ it?

Isn’t this the case with ‘most’ product launches like these? They are what I call – marketing gimmicks and achieve just one thing: generate PR.
But then, real products go deeper. Or they don’t do such gimmicks. It’s a tough choice.
As a product owner, how will you convince marketing team to ‘go slow’ on gimmicks? Where do you draw the line between gimmicky and being cool?

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