Once upon a time, companies simply made new products and sold them. In due course, they made them, advertised them to buyers and then sold them. Now, publicity frequently comes before the sale, the production and sometimes even the design of the item, with what modern marketers like to call a “pre-announcement”.

The consequences of such early declarations of intent can spread far beyond the marketing department. Botch the pre-launch hype and you will damage profitability, unsettle sales and – if the product doesn’t live up to expectations – undermine the company’s credibility. Get it right and you may establish a lead in a new product area and lay the groundwork for future success.

Aggressive pre-announcement can get you into legal difficulty, as Microsoftdiscovered during the antitrust debate of the 1990s, when district judge Stanley Sporkin denounced the company for allegedly marketing forthcoming software just to disrupt rivals’ product cycles. He said promoting so-called “vaporware” was “a practice that is deceitful on its face and everybody in the business community knows it”.