“We came to San Francisco ostensibly to witness the second coming of Apple’s white-hot tablet – the same gadget that Google, Motorola, Research In Motion and a hundred other companies are now desperately trying to catch up with. You’ve no doubt by now heard everything there is to say about the iPad 2: it’s fast, good-looking and thinner than air,” Omar El Akkad reports for The Globe and Mail Update.
“In a few months, the same stage will feature a different act: maybe the next iPhone, and then the iPad 3, and so on. In a sense, every one of these events is less about the product and more about taking a very first-world kind of cultural pulse, witnessing the next sleek gizmo that folks will voluntarily sleep outside in the cold just to be the first to purchase,” El Akkad reports.
“But there’s something bigger going on, something weirdly political. The more interesting part of all this hoopla is how Apple got to be far and away the best company in the world at making people want things. Over the past decade, nobody has come close to generating the kind of rabid, euphoric frenzy that Apple has for its iProducts. Outside the world of high-end auctions, rarely does the basic act of buying something elicit applause from onlookers,” El Akkad reports. “But show up at any Apple store on the morning of a new product launch and there they are, crowds of beaming people cheering wildly as one of their own successfully engages the cash register.”
El Akkad reports, “A day spent in the middle of a high-profile Apple product launch sheds some light on how this company became perhaps the best marketer on Earth.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: People love Apple products because when they’re in use, or even merely in view, they reaffirm humanity’s capacity for genius and precision in a world chock full of mediocrity or worse.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Joe W.” for the heads up.]
Good take.
Oh yeah!
It is unbelievable for how long have we lived in the crapiness that Microsoft Windows is, just unbelievable.
Another MDN take right on target.
What a strange article. As MacDailyNews knows, these guys love to point to all the “marketing” (read: “you’re all being FOOLED by Apple!”) They constantly fail to recognize that Apple’s ACTUAL PRODUCTS are vastly superior.
They work faster. They have better battery life. They have more intuitive interfaces. They’re more aesthetically pleasing. They have a more cohesive ecosystem. And to make it worse: with the iPad they’re actually cheaper!
You can have all the marketing muscle in the world, but even the great Steve Jobs couldn’t sell the ViewSonic ViewPad.
As for the Apple philosophy: The philosophy is what drives the people that run Apple. The passion that they have for their products is why their products are so vastly superior. Sure, some fanboys buy Apple products because they love the philosophy, but most people buy Apple products because they provide a vastly superior user experience in every measurable way.
As for the “Stalin” crap: It’s such a transparently lame argument that it barely qualifies for a response. “OMG Apple exerts control over their products! It’s just like Stalinism! Apple will kill millions!” …please.
“you’re all being FOOLED by Apple!”
Yeah, go to TechCrunch to see this common refrain. When did marketing become a word constantly used in the pejorative? You market items to make the public aware that you have something to sell. If you are smart, your ads across multiple mediums explain why you might want said product and elicit a response from consumers and they buy your product.
If you are dumb, your marketing is targeted at testosterone overdosed desktop gamers who think a phone will make them a robot or a starship pilot.
But it’s marketing. it’s good or it’s bad. You still need a product to sell and if the product doesn’t sell you move on. Or fold.
But while Apple’s marketing may be excellent (Hey. Here’s our phone and this is what it can do. It won’t make you a cyborg or land in your crops like a meteor.) their products are better. Getting people to notice you is nice, but if your product is crap, people can figure that out for themselves. The only brainwashed ideologues in this discussion are the brainwashed ideologues that think Apple practices some kind of consumer witchcraft.
“The only brainwashed ideologues in this discussion are the brainwashed ideologues that think Apple practices some kind of consumer witchcraft.”
Sourcery, erm, magic! 😉
Um, don’t forget the four P’s of marketing: Product, Price, Place and Promotion. Apple’s R & D and the resulting brilliant Products are actually a vital part of what marketing is. To suggest that the Promotion part only is marketing, is to not understand the full breadth of the subject.
As an aside, the deliberately shallow nature of tech news coverage is part of the problem. The crowds that gather at an Apple store are viewed as some odd phenomena without a cause, as if it was a corporate flash mob. The hit whore obsessed tech media simply refuse (not all, but many) to accept that Apple has consistently delivered on it’s promises, supports their products in a manner that is second to none, and has built an ecosystem that extends the use of any Apple product far beyond the edges of it’s physical dimensions.
That’s it. That’s how Apple built it’s Empire: by being the best technology company on the planet. They aren’t the best tech company on the planet because people buy their stuff. People buy Apple’s stuff because they make the best products and support in ways other companies do not. I think the distinction is meaningful.
Nice take MacDailyNew. Because you’re SO right.
In 2009 (last I have data on) Apple spent very little on advertising vs the other tech companies. Msft spent 3 times as much, even Dell which makes a fraction of Apple’s profits spent more on marketing than Apple. Last year Msft spent $500 million to launch WP7 in 30 countries (to sell 2 million phones!).
Marketing don’t work if you have lousy products.
Advertising is a small subset of all the actions that constitute marketing.
DO NOT confuse the two.
Exactly.
It’s a common misconception that marketing is the same thing as advertising. Marketing is a much more comprehensive concept. It includes, among other things, researching consumer segments, determining their needs and desire and delivering that information to development teams. Although it does include advertising, it is, as qka put it, just a part of the process.
That said, Apple may be one of the only companies I have seen that actually seem to be able to enlarge or create markets for their products. This is due to incredible brand credibility, as well as their uncanny ability to see what is missing from current products (think iPod and iPhone), and also to visualize missing products (think iPad).
the article is insightful, as far as it goes.
the reason for Apple’s success and popularity is really not hard to explain: consistently great products, great marketing, and great service (the retail stores). none of the competition can match all three. then add the undeniable visionary innovation of Jobs – a true equal of Edison and Ford in the history of American capitalism – and you have the world’s most dynamic tech company today.
This argument about Apple being an excellent or superb marketer, can have two meanings (at least to me):
a) Marketing comprises several activities, one of which is product design, understanding or even anticipating customers needs, also it includes ADVERTISING.
b) Marketing= advertising, promotion.
I believe that Apple does marketing in the first sense. The other argument I believe is a very poor one, it shows that the persona making this argument knows very little about creating a successful product, look at all the “marketing” expense MS has made about Win Phone 7, and it is not working
“People love Apple products because when they’re in use, or even merely in view, they reaffirm humanity’s capacity for genius and precision in a world chock full of mediocrity or worse.”
Brilliant. A wonderful turn of phrase. Love the biting and oh-so-true remarks like this. A big part of why this site is one of my very small number of feeds.
A world chock full of mediocrity or worse…damn that’s depressingly accurate.
I am one who remembers the Commodore Amiga. The platform was brilliant for its time, but the company was woefully inadequate in terms of marketing, advertising, R&D, etc.
I’m glad Apple has succeeded where Commodore has tragically failed. Brilliantly conceived and designed ecosystem (i.e. hardware, software, services, interoperability, etc.), absolute attention to innovation and detail.
The result is a very rare combination of admired products, company, services and perceived value.
The frosting on the cake of Apple’s advertising/marketing is the ability of the products to entice people directly and the prominent can’t miss logo!
excellent take. here, here..