“But, without a Steve Jobs at the helm, or with fewer resources than Apple, is building that kind of loyalty possible?” Dooley writes. “I’ve got good news: while having a visionary and charismatic CEO is a big plus, it isn’t necessary to build a fan base, or even a fanatic base.”
Dooley writes, “One big secret of Apple’s success lies in an experiment conducted 40 years ago. Psychologist Henri Tajfel wanted to know how seemingly normal people could commit genocide, and explored how easy or difficult it was to get subjects to identify with one group and discriminate against others. What he found was startling: with the most trivial of distinctions, he could create artificial loyalties to one group, who would then discriminate against those not in that group.”
MacDailyNews Take: Oh, for Jobs’ sake, here we go!
Dooley writes, “Look at the wildly popular Mac Guy vs. PC Guy ads. These in particular draw a sharp distinction – do you want to be one of the cool kids, or a dork? Note the common characteristic of these, and many other, Apple commercials: they focus on the PEOPLE who use each product.”
MacDailyNews Take: You’d think a guy who writes for a marketing site would be able to figure out that in the “Get a Mac” ads, the PEOPLE represent the MACHINES. John Hodgman played a WINDOWS PC, not a Windows PC user. Justin Long played an APPLE MACINTOSH, not a Mac user. We now return you to uninformed, mindless drivel:
Dooley writes, “These ads convey little or no actual product information, and instead mock PC users while portraying Apple users in a favorable way.”
MacDailyNews Take: Again, the ads mock the Windows PC and portray the Mac in a favorable way. Imagine an Apple ad doing such a thing; MIND CONTROL!
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Forget the bullshit from a “marketing expert” who can’t even grasp what, not who, the actors represented in Apple’s “Get a Mac” campaign.
It’s really quite simple, but seemingly impossible for others to replicate reliably: Apple CEO Steve Jobs turns customers into legions of fanatical evangelists by conceiving and building wonderfully useful products that marry beautiful hardware with brilliant software. Apple’s products scream “attention to detail,” thereby delighting users who can’t wait for the next innovation.
People aren’t stupid. They can clearly see that one company continually leads the tech industry while a bunch of also-rans scramble to copy.
That’s why all PC user interfaces try to look like a Mac. That’s why most portable media players (the ones that are left) look like the iPod models that inspired them. That’s why most “smartphones” today look like last year’s iPhone. And that’s why the flood of tablets on the way will all look like different-sized iPads.
We prefer to invest our money in the real thing from a company that has proven to care deeply about the products they produce. We’re “fanatical evangelists” because Apple is fanatical about their products.
Go use the products, Roger. Then you’ll get it.
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