Marketing Apple: Secrets of the World's Best Marketing Machine

Tribute to Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs' death hit me in a way I wasn't expecting, even though I was expecting Steve Jobs' death. 

I'll write much more on these pages soon, but I was inspired to quickly create this tribute video to him: Here is Steve Jobs narrating and starring in his own Think Different commercial.  I couldn't wait for Apple to do this so I had to - of course using all Apple tools.

First Apple Launch without Steve Jobs

So I already knew that Apple wasn't releasing an iPhone 5 today - remember gang, there was no iPhone 2 or iPhone 3 (we went from iPhone to iPhone 3G to denote the new carrier).  We also don't have an iMac 3 or an iPod 5, and the numbering scheme for iPhone 4 was really an anomoly.

So don't read too much into Apple product numbers.  But I am concerned about three rare product launch slip ups that never would have happened if Steve was minding the store.

The first problem: Apple.com was unreachable for more than an hour today.  Ok, the Store is something Apple always takes down before a product launch and then they time the home page to update as soon as Steve (er Tim) is done with his keynote.  But here is how Apple.com looked for hours after today's launch:

Apple.com was down?  That's huge news by itself.  And if that wasn't bad enough, look at what the images of the iPhone 4S looked like on the Apple website after the Apple pages were finally brought online:

Really?  Look at those white corners in the images of the iPhones? Anyone who knows web graphics knows you need to make those white corners transparent so the shadow effect is preserved.  Here they look like they were hastily posted without someone noticing that problem.

And finally, around an hour before the keynote all the details of the iPhone 4S and the new iPod nano was announced on Apple's Japan website for the world to see.  Whoops.

While none of these issues are earth-shattering in their own right (well, Apple.com going down is pretty big) I only hope this isn't the first visible signs that Steve's steady hand is required for Apple to continue to deliver great products - and experiences - that truly surprise and delight.

Come on Tim, your team has done better! (and we're all rooting for you)

P.S. I do take some delight in noticing that all the dates on the iPhone Siri screenshot - May 19 - is my birthday.

Final Cut Pro X, Avid and Apple's Marketing Strategy

UPDATE 7/5: Nice job Avid (Hi Paul!)

 

I love it when worlds collide.

As many of you know, I worked at Apple for about a decade and left to run product marketing for a startup (Bowstreet) at the beginning of the original dot.com bubble.  What many of you don't know is that right after Bowstreet I joined Avid Technology to help save them from being put out of business by - you guessed it - Apple.

See in those days Avid was the king of media. It is not an exaggeration to say that EVERY major movie, television program and/or song was touched in some way by Avid's tools.  Their brands: Avid Media Composer, Digidesign Pro Tools, and Avid Unity media management were known and loved by real professionals who produce the world's best media every day.

Trouble was, as much as these customer loved the tools, they hated the company for many years of predatory pricing practices and other arrogances.  Customers were ready to leave the moment Apple launched Final Cut Pro and Apple went out of its way to attract these customers with the promise of lower prices, better tools and more collegial relationships. One of my many roles at Avid was to rebuild the strained relationships with our customers (this is a good recounting of how we did that - hi Marianna!) But having better discussions with our customers wouldn't save Avid.  Not only did we have to double-down on the solutions those professionals needed (by launching Mojo, Adrenaline and Nitris) but we also had to - gulp - outmarket Apple.

And we did!  I could write a book on how I helped Avid compete with (and beat) Apple at their own marketing game: launching Avid FreeDV while Steve Jobs was still on the MacWorld stage introducing Final Cut Express; including both Mac and Windows installers in the same box and encouraging pros to install on more than one computer; adding professional color correction tools into Avid Xpress DV v3.5 and launching it at the Final Cut Pro User's Group in Hollywood while getting Steve Jobs to provide a quote in the Avid press release alongside Avid's own CEO.  I could go on and on.  The moral of this story is that we had to listen more, work harder, innovate faster and deliver the solutions these professionals needed all while beating the marketing drum louder than ever.  I'm proud to say that these efforts took Avid from death's doorstep to record growth (the stock climbed from $9/share to $65/share and the company broke through the $1B annual revenue barrier after 14 years of trying) - all by focusing solely on the needs of the professional market it created.

What's amusing and a bit sad about this week's horrific launch of Final Cut Pro X is that Apple is now making the (rare) marketing mistake of telling these professionals what they want instead of giving them what they are asking for - all with the typical Apple marketing silence.  Such arrogance works in a consumer market where your average person doesn't really know what they want until they see it (the Henry Ford "faster horse" argument) - but this approach does not work in an enterprise or professional market where people's careers are built - and risked - by delivering results. Pro customers who moved away from Avid bet their own personal brands on Apple - and are rightly concerned when it seems that Apple has turned its back on them for the safety (and possible additional revenue) of the consumer market.

When was the last time we've seen Apple's brand hammered in major print articles with headlines like "debacle" and "troubling"?  When was the last time NYTimes columnist David Pogue (who got his start writing for MacWorld magazine) wrote a followup article to defuse the venom generated by his first one?  Apple has long leveraged the power of fanatical, cult-like users even with a trivial marketshare.  Well, Apple is now witnessing the power of these same vocal users uniting against it - and Apple must listen and react.  To do nothing risks the contagion spreading as more videos like this one from the Conan O'Brien Show overflow to the average Joe Consumer:

Steve has been called the Henry Ford and Thomas Edison of our age and he is my personal hero.  You can bet he is listening to all the FCPX negativity as he did with MobileMe and Antennagate. He famously said "We want to make all our users happy. If you don’t know that, you don’t know Apple."  Well now it is time to see if the world's best marketing machine can live up to its billing and if these professional users will be happy with Apple again soon.

Me, I'm still rooting for Avid.  Now about that book...

Apple marketing strategy drives earnings and hides iCloud secret

Apple had another blowout quarter.  No surprise there.

But what's hidden in the numbers is a surprise.  Tremendous optimism for the new Apple Cloud strategy - iCloud - that is only partly revealed.  As I mentioned in a previous post about AirPlay, Apple is looking to change the way the world experiences video in a more massive way than it how it changed the way we listen to music.

With music, we already had Walkman and radio players with headphones.  Steve Jobs liberated us from our desktops by allowing us to take all our music with us anywhere we go.  But the priviledge - which remade an entire industry around iTunes - still chained us to our desks to sync and backup all our songs.

With my iPad, I now let Netflix worry about storing and saving all those movies - all I do is click a button and watch what I want, where I want with narry a concern about actually owning or backing up a single video file.

This then is the Apple iCloud vision: to provide you with access to all your media wherever you go.  When you buy a song or movie with iTunes it will be available to you anywhere, just log onto iCloud.  At a friends house and want to watch your shows?  Just log on with your AppleID via her AppleTV and watch away.  At grandma's house and want to show her a video of the grandkids?  Pull out her iPad and log into iCloud...there it is.

If you are a Netflix user like me you already know how liberating this is for movies and television shows.  Now add to that vision all your photos, all your music, all your iPhone videos, your contacts, your emails, someday even all your apps.  All your media will be "with you" wherever you go - reminds me of the line from Buckaroo Bonzai (or was it Confucius?) "No Matter Where You Go, There You Are"

 

 

 

Skype borrows from Apple's Marketing Strategy to demonstrate the power of video

In my next few blog posts, I want to discuss the power of video. I have been doing some homework on how much video we consume over the Internet. Astonishingly, in February, 170 Million Americans watched online videos representing 84% of the connected US audience. The average amount of video each user watched was nearly 14 hours. Another way to say it: almost everyone is watching video online. And our expectations for quality video grows along with our consumption appetite. The bar has risen on marketing teams to use video in a more powerful way.

Recently Skype introduced group video chat. Rather than create a typical product launch video with a talking head showing how to use the product, Skype created this beautiful word-less video showing the power of visual communications accompanied by a haunting, memorable music overlay: (please don't blame me if you can't get this tune out of your head or if you are motivated to try playing it yourself on GarageBand.)

Skype has clearly taken an Apple-esque approach to launching a new feature: focus the viewer not on how to use Skype video chat but on what Skype video chat can do for you.

The Beatles come to Apple (or Apple Marketing takes the Abbey Road)

So today, forgiving a rare, poorly worded Apple teaser, was supposed to be a day never to forget.  After all, there is only one day when the Beatles catalog finally makes its way to iTunes.  Steve, ever in charge of Apple's marketing, clearly believed this was a milestone to not only share but also sell in a big way.  So Apple took down their website yesterday and replaced it with this teaser:
And today, they did it again - giving all that whitespace on their home page, iTunes and the iTunes App to the one and only Beatles:

And as people are wont to do (me included) this news, while intriguing, seemed underwhelming given traditional Apple teases (and the simple fact that most real Beatles fans already have their music on their iDevices).  So, what do you do with that pent up excitement - well let the crowdsourcing games begin - (as started by the website Abajillion Hits) - can you come up with your own?  Too funny!

 

Apple makes rare marketing mistake (or Newton Marketing part 2)

I never thought I'd see this again. 

When I give my keynote speeches on the power of Apple marketing, I often stop to describe how Apple lost its way shortly after the Newton launch.  You see, what makes Apple marketing so powerful is they hone in on the one thing they do better than anyone else in whatever category they go after.  The formula is simple, and Apple is the master:

• Music: Put 1000 songs in your pocket.
• Computers: Make computers easy to use.
• Phones: Put the web in your pocket.

But with Newton, they did not have an established category to fix.  So their marketing was rambling.  Witness this video:

"Newton is for all you mobile professionals who like cool stuff." Huh?

Now with iPad, they are again without an established category to fix. And they seem just as lost as with Newton.

I got wind of this with the first "magical and revolutionary" device mention.  Doesn't say much.  And it also describes the wheel, or a cigarette lighter or a toilet. 

Now witness their new iPad commercial:

Sound similar?

Steve,call me.  I've been using an iPad non-stop for a month and you are missing the boat on the power of the device.  The iPad doesn't replace a computer, or a book, or a phone.  The iPad replaces the television.  And I know you know it.  Time to say so.

Seriously Microsoft. What R U thinking?

It's one thing to try to think different with your marketing.  It's another when trying too hard to look cool comes and bites you in the ass.  Just when I got the Microsoft Store video out of my mind and the Windows 7 home party infomercial (really, Steve Ballmer, did you think ANYONE would ever have a Windows 7 house party?) there comes the new Kin commercial. 

Enjoy.  Or don't. 

Microsoft PR, call me. I have an idea that will catapult you back to the top of the charts by playing off your strengths and leveraging Apple's marketing.

Magical Device, the iPad

I'll have much more to say on this shortly but I need to get two things off my chest first:

1. Apple isn't trying to decide if a niche exists between smartphones and laptops.  They are trying to replace netbooks (and eventually laptops) and get people to carry the cloud with them.  If you think through the logical progression of the Web, all the data we care about will exist online.  The iPad is the device to access it.  Very different mode than a laptop.  This is the device from the future we've seen on Star Trek.  You can buy it today (well in 59 days.)

2. "Our most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price."  Something about this sentence seemed un-Applelike.  As someone who struggles to come up with the "syrupy goodness" of my value props (spoken about in my free eBook) this phrase seemed too forced and wordy.  It doesn't even say what it does.  "Touch the Web"  or "Your life to go." would have been more Apple-like to me.  I just don't follow this one...

More soon.

P.S. thank you Dane for the correct spelling of niche ;)

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