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

Product placement, iTunes and American Idol

Did you see American Idol last night? I was watching with my sons and I couldn't believe the 5 minute "commercial" for iTunes, iPods and iPhones that Apple pulled off about 10 minutes into the show.

If you saw it, please post your comments here. Is this borderline pandering? Or is this just super-good marketing that is making me (and other marketers) jealous of how far Apple can go to spread its gospel.

A Black Eye for Apple

On first blush, this blog post looks like bad PR for our Cupertino friends.  But in case you missed this story, TV personality Charlie Rose ended up with a real black eye while saving his new MacBook Air instead of protecting his body.  Now that's great PR!

I only have one thing to say.  I don't think we'll ever see a story about someone saving their Dell.

Apple's wicked good product placement

Apple is the master of free product placement.  How many shows or movies have you seen with an Apple product onscreen?  When I used to work at Apple we had a full-time person ([email protected]) whose sole job was to get Apple product placed on primetime and Hollywood productions.  For free. The only stipulation was that Apple product could not be used for negative gains - if you notice, the Mac is often used by the hero.

Imagine how much such exposure would cost, even if you could pay for it (remember, most DVR users don't ever see the commercials.)  Today, marketers should investigate free product placement to showcase their products if possible, and yes, I recently asked Dimdim's PR firm to explore this option for our free web meeting product.  [Warning - blatant plug coming: If any TV or film exec is reading this, we'd be happy to provide our software which lets people chat, share webcams, and do VoIP calls from any browser with no software to install for your show - for free.  Just contact me.]

With the recent American Idol deal, now many of the pre-song clips show those young people using iPods and iPhones - implicitly slipping a message to millions of viewers. More good marketing mojo.

Remember what computer Jeff Goldblum used to save the world in Independence Day?    

Remember what computer Tom Cruise used in Mission Impossible?

I'm interested in hearing from you on recent Apple sightings on TV or film.  Seen any good Apples lately?

Apple, the Baltics, and Air.

I'm headed to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania this week to share Apple's marketing strategy.  Come see me if you can.

In the meantime I know I owe everyone an answer to what I believe is the real goal of the MacBook Air.  Unfortunately I haven't had time to circle back with all my sources yet but I'll leave you with a hint:

What do you get when you cross a 100% internet communication device (like an iPhone) with a laptop that has limited network connectivity (like a MacBook Air)?

If you can answer that question you'll have a good idea what the next Air product will accomplish.

More when I'm back from my travels (or if I get good internet access on my MBP.)

I'm back. Thanks to all in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia that I met on my travels - the people were great and a pleasure to meet. Here is a picture from my presentation in Tartu, Estonia: