Mophie show you just how *not* to promote an iPhone-related product

I was browsing my February 2013 copy of Macworld magazine when I spied an advert for ‘mophie juice pack helium’, a new battery case for the iPhone 5. The helium name was reinforced by the ‘lighter than air’ strap line.

Intrigued, I immediately headed to Mophie’s web site and searched for helium. No joy.

I then went to the iPhone 5 products page expecting to see the helium case listed. Again, no joy. The page did have a sign-up box where you could be notified when their ‘new juice pack cases are ready’. No mention of the ‘helium’ brand though. Strange.

Intrigued by this. I turned to Google. Very strange results. The top hit was a page about their trade mark for the name (as was the 4th hit). The 2nd and 4th hits were for sites that claim to sell the product but which listed it as out of stock or as discontinued.

I can understand that you can start marketing a product before it is available to buy — or sometimes before it even exists — but this seems a really strange situation. A print advertisement exists in a top-tier, iPhone-related publication, but barely a mention of the product name anywhere else. What are mophie up to?