“What is more troubling than the businesses who want to sell a ton of merchandise during the holiday quarter are the businesses who seemingly to want to cater to the consumer but completely ignore a major segment of their business during the busy season. The culprit here is, of course, Apple Computer,” Chris Seibold writes for Apple Matters. “Apple, predictably, will advertise the batteries out the new iPod and possibly the iPod nano… Which is great, in the last quarter the iPod accounted for 33% of Apple’s income. The iPod is obviously a popular product and hence it should be advertised. Still Apple is giving short shrift, at least from a marketing perspective, to the new iMac. It is important to remember that Macintosh computers still account for 43% of Apple’s sales, the largest percentage of Apple’s revenue.(Is Apple a computer company that happens to sell iPods, or an iPod company that sells a high priced iPod add-on computer? The line between the two grows more blurred daily).”
Seibold writes, “Windows users, in general, are unaware of the goodness that is Macintosh… Apple has an eminently marketable product in the new iMac. Therefore they should take a tip from the other corporations dotting the business landscape and advertise the thing. Please.”
Full article here.
[UPDATE: October 28, 2005: 4:40pm ET: Corrected “eminently” in Seibold’s article.]
But, if Apple advertised the Mac, people might buy more Macs! People might actually understand that their insipid Word documents will work fine on a Mac. People might figure out that, yes, Virginia, “Macs have the Internet” and can do email. People might even get a glimpse of GarageBand or Dashboard or Front Row or something equally cool. They might see something that’s refined and elegant inside and out instead of dull and mediocre through and through. Can’t have that sort of stuff, now can we? Seibold must’ve lost his mind. Yeah, yeah, we know: iPods sell Macs.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
More would switch from Windows to Mac if Apple advertised more effectively – September 04, 2005
Forrester analysts: Apple should advertise Mac OS X Tiger on television and in movie theaters – April 29, 2005
Mac fans line up for new operating system as passberby asks ‘what is a tiger?’ – April 29, 2005
Apple posts QuickTime movies of Mac OS X Tiger features in action – April 13, 2005
Why doesn’t Apple advertise Mac OS X on TV? – April 12, 2005
Why doesn’t Apple show its patented Mac OS X ‘Genie Effect’ in TV ads? – October 07, 2004
Top Ten things Apple needs to show the world about Macintosh – July 30, 2003
Apple has one of the strongest marketing dept. of any company out there. And if they choose not to advertise the Mac, then there must be a reason. Although I do see OS X ads in magazines. Perhaps they reason why they don’t have tv ads for Mac is because they’re ineffective. Getting a PC user to switch is no 30 sec feat. The best way to get them to switch is by educating them. So would all my fellow mac user STOP COMPLAINING AND START PREACHING!!!
Apple sells, what, about 4-5 million computers a year. Its US market share is growing, but still less than 5%. In the rest of the world, it’s lower.
The bulk of those sales are to current Apple users. No bang for your advertising buck there. The purpose of an ad campaign should be to attact new users. Everyone no doubt agrees on that one.
Any advertising campaign would be specific to a particular market or culture. In other words, US ads won’t play well in Asia.
Suppose 100 million bucks in TV ads in the US brings in another half-million new (i.e. current Windows-users) customers. $200 for each new customer is pretty steep.
Meanwhile, the iPod is getting the Apple brand into the hands of millions of Windows users, and this happens profitably. It’s better than free marketing–its marketing that the customers actually pay Apple for.
If just 5% of Windows iPod users buy an Apple computer, market share steadily increases, as is happening now. 5% intending to purchase is hands down better than any results a TV campaign could bring.
Add to that the way which Apple is creating buzz–in Time magazine cover stories, with stage-managed announcements, with media and computer-industry buzz (even PC World is endorsing its products now–whoda thunkit?) and you can see that Apple has carefully, relentlessly, played its marketing cards, they’ve just used innovative new methods of doing it.
Innovative…of course, how did we miss it? Paying big bucks for traditional TV spots seems so…yesterday. And it has such poor ROI. Don’t we all think traditional TV is dying anyway?
Someday, I want to own a company so clever it gets its huge marketing for free. But I’ll have to wait until the stock price dips a bit, $55 is too high for me right now.
MW = results, as in, duh!
When vista comes out the gap will be much smaller between mac os and windows (still huge though
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What really confuses me is that Apple even went so far as to MAKE ads advertising OS X… and then never ran them!
http://www.esm.psu.edu/Faculty/Gray/movies.html
That site has some limited bandwidth issues, but the videos are titled:
“Touching”, “Junk Mail”, “Find yourself”, and “Xpress yourself”. They are for Jaguar, and half decent, but apparently never released.
Perhaps they were found to be not good enough quality? Or someone pulled the plug at the last minute?
Regardless, it would be nice to see some new Apple ads of the quality of the older ones. Whatever happened to ads like the “Think Different” ad?
MDN MW: “Group”, as in Apple has a chance to bring in a whole new group of people!
Advertising takes many forms beyond straight TV ads (such as the iPod ads). Public TV viewers must have certainly noticed that Apple was the corporate underwriter for the Bob Dylan two-part Martin Scorsese film, “No Way Home.”
Ever notice how often Powerbooks appear onscreen in the hippest TV shows? Maybe Larry David’s TV wife in “Curb Your Enthusiasm” uses a Powerbook because it’s in the script — or it could be a strategic “product placement.” Same for the uber-trendy HBO series “Entourage.” You can tell which agency employee has the most juice by the type of Mac on their desk.
While not purely advertising, the Apple Stores in malls and campus bookstores across America are giving millions of folks a good dose of the brand image along with some up-close & personal interaction with the people and products of Apple. And the website, with all the special areas for Pro, education, etc. is excellent.
I don’t think the Prius has ever been advertised on TV — Toyota ran print ads in Wired for years — yet the car has generated tremendous media buzz and consumer demand. I have a hunch that Apple also has a savvy marketing plan in place for G5s that includes “earned media,” product placement, catalog co-op advertising and the like.
I thought the only reason that the Macs aren’t selling like Microsoft does is because Microsoft sells a low system that students can buy just for word proccessing and going online. The eMac would be a great student computer, but it doesn’t have the impressively awful flat screen that comes with a Microsoft computer.
If Mac wanted all the normal house computer people to use their system they need to change the eMac and make it more appealing.
~Caleb strikes again!
I think the ipod is the best advertising for the mac possible, but advertising is very tricky business and I won’t even try to second guess or offer advice to Steve Jobs. I suggest you relax and do the same.
they get free advertising like this every day. Even Fox news wrote a recent article about the video iPod…
I see Apple on TV all the time:
* as the corporate underwriter of Martin Scorcese’s Public TV film about Bob Dylan, “No Direction Home.”
* in the homes and office of characters in HBO’s top series, “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and “Entourage.”
* on the news whenever Steve Jobs appears
Product placement, earned media, name ID association with excellence in music — combined with the high tech/high touch Apple Stores and catalog co-op ads. Sounds like a marketing plan to me….
Remember, the Prius isn’t advertised on TV either, yet the media buzz, popularity and consumer demand is intense. For some products, it takes a softer touch.
From Apple’s own website on their .Mac page…
“How revolutionary is an idea if you don’t tell others?”
They don’t advertise any computers,(last one I saw was the iMac FP) only iPods. Then when they do they ONLY and I mean ONLY sell to the “liberal loft crowd” and “gang banger city kids” Never to John midwest. “F” the cool kiddy gang crap and do a 30 – 60 sec high class showpiece showing quick close-ups of program workings to entice EVERYONE. The liberal loft crowd ads insults my intelligence and I am a dumb ass. So there. That’s how bad I think their marketing is.
We really shouldn’t question Apple’s advertising methods. Any company that can lose 90% of its market share, since it was neck and neck with the ibm pc platform in the late 80’s, while producing superior products, doesn’t need anyone’s help.
Apple doesn’t advertise on TV because you can’t sell a Mac to the TV crowd. They see a $250 Dell with higher clockspeed, and they’re going to become experts in computers and tell their friends that Macs suck.
Once the Mac mini hits 2.0+ GHz, get ready for the media deluge.
Er, by “imminently” did he mean “eminently”?
there are three elements of advertising: find your target market, aim, fire. if most of the lack of advertising angst comes from the lack of tv advertising, then the people who are complaining are watching the wrong programs. you say you have a mac and want to see more mac advertising on what you are watching? if the chiat folks are doing there job, you mac owners shouldn’t see mac ads. it must be working.
agree totally that advertising is about building brand. apple has enhanced and broadened its brand with ipod advertising in print, espn and mtv. advertising is supposed to be hypnotic. youwillbuyamacyouwillbuyamac. not the over the top crap you usually see. get the nonmac folks getting the brand message with the ipod then lead them by the nose from there.
i see apple’s advertising as more on than off target. this approach is the only way since they lost the battle for the desktop. the strategy is to put the desktop in your rear view mirror and win the war. building brand with macs at this time is folly. i’m guessing they are trying to define the mac as something other than a desktop device or will be renaming it the johnpaulgeorgeringo media appliance (with a click wheel remote of course).
MW: Problem. if Apple advertised the Mac, people might buy more Macs and MDN might have to reinvent itself.
I think we’ll see ads later in 2006, when Jobs is ready. He’ll get more bang for the bucks then. Stay the course, Stevie.
Microsoft quarterly profit rises 24% to US$3.14 Billion!!! And that’s just software!!!
Tra-la-la, La-la, La-la…
Mac fanboys, keep the flame… as you slowly drift off to irrelevance…
(33% of sales due to iPods – definitely an iPod manufacturer that happens to sell expensive computers)
Evinrude outboard motors made an infomercial about 1-2 years ago that made me want to go out and buy one. Granted it was 15+ mins long. The ad agency that did that hit it out of the park.( I even e-mail some Apple executives that I found their e-mail. I really needed Steve’s email address) I can bet you no NY liberal loft crowd agency worked on that one. I still want to buy a $12,000 outboard today because of that commercial and I don’t even own a boat. Demonstrations on how their product worked , tested it against a Yamaha outboard right beside it on a twin motored hull. Close ups, high quality camera work and clean and clear information on why they think they have the best motor. Good writing, lighting and camera work and most of all, YOU SAW IT RUNNING AND PERFORMING!!! The loft crowd and city kid gang bangers already know how cool and good iPods are. Show Joe Average the other 75 % of the market that thinks an Apple is a fruit or is just a glorified Apple II
Mac Jack
Why yes, I did mean eminently. Thanks for the catch.
1) Historically, Apple has had a difficult time with having adequate inventory. Even now plenty of Macs are being sold. If suddenly and additional 3% of the market demanded Macs, I’m not sure Apple could supply them.
2) They don’t need to. The computers are selling.
3) Why? This is not some competition between Apple and Microsoft. The battle over OSs was fought years ago and Apple lost. However, Apple is still making money and is still around to inovate and create cool computers. We don’t need to have 50% of the sales.
Yep, you are right Mark. The China computer maker who makes Apple’s computer would have to build a couple new factories to keep up to the demand if Apple would start to sell 3-4 % more computers
Dude… We the zealots are the advertising… everytime we tell someone about how Macs are better, it’s like we’re selling Quarter cutting knives or space station tupperware…
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Oh yeah… we’re free also…
Mac marketshare compared to PC’s was never greater than 20%, if that. When sjobs came back from NeXT, wasn’t it 7%?
Hey Evil…
Shouldn’t you go and use an iRiver?