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

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"

 

 

 

Apple Marketing without an Apple Product (funny)

Conan O'brien gives us an idea how the next Apple product could be marketed...even without knowing what the product is.  Pretty funny (and not that far off!)

 

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.

iPad is changing the face of TV

I know there has been some hoopla around the eventuality of AirPlay coming to a television set near you.  But not much has been made of the fact that the iPad is already changing the face of television today.  The ABC iPad app is amazing (where are Fox and NBC?), Netflix has grown dramatically since the iPad was launched (no coincidence there) and now the networks are upset with Time Warner's new live streaming app (which was the top free app in the AppStore for 3 days in a row this week) because it changes the rules that broadcasters have had to live under since the advent of television.

Today's announcement by the NCAA was stunning (yet somehow hidden in the numbers): 8 million people viewed the tournaments on 4 different cable networks...but 27 million viewed it online and via iPad and iPhone apps.  I did some other homework on video streaming recently.  More than twice the number of people watched Obama's inauguration online than on all the television networks combined.  Social, mobile devices like the iPad are rewriting the rules of television and all advertisers, marketers, developers and consumers need to be ready.

Mark my words: within a few years all your media will stream to you on your mobile device and Apple will lead this revolution.  What do you think that huge Apple datacenter (reportedly bigger than Amazon's or Google's) in North Carolina for?

Now my only question: Charter where is your iPad app??

 

 

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.

True Power of Apple Marketing Part Deux

Love it when the AP picks up a story we've been talking about here for months.

How is it that anyone (especially in this economy) can stand in line to plunk down $499-$900 on a brand new iPad when they've never even seen one? Hey, Jessica Mintz, it's simple:

Thanks to the power of the World's Best Marketing Machine (aka Steve Jobs) you simply follow this formula to demonstrate the true power of Apple marketing:

1. Surprise and Delight.  Get in a habit of overachieving your own goals.  Make what people buy today more powerful tomorrow (think AppStore...not even in sight when people bought their first iPhone)  Do that often enough, and you get people to trust you.  Or give them rebates when it seems like you took advantage of them for buying too soon. In fact, Apple's current brand trust is ranked #1...but it has been for years.

2. Take the Order.  Apple made it easy to gauge demand for iPad and dynamically shifted demand into building the right number and type of iPads.  Simply putting up a "Pre-Order" page did the trick.  Oh yeah, and circling back and reminding people that their iPad will be waiting for them is a nice touch.  UPDATE: April 1 - Apple refunds all rush shipping charges - another way to earn cred!

3. Ship It.  Okay, sounds easy, but please...JooJoo (er CrunchPad) all the way back to the Osborne have failed to deliver on their promises.  Apple shows it, takes the order, ships it.  Or as this earlier post states: "Ship delight.  Repeat."

Then goes back and improve it all again.  Yes, Apple has made a living on this form of marketing and customer experience.  There is no one better.

Apple: Do one thing, better.

That is Apple's secret.

And Tim Cook confirms it today. 

When I give my Apple speeches around the world, I spend a lot of time explaining to audiences that the one thing Apple does better than anyone else it they focus on one thing to do better than anyone else.

The iPod made getting music into your pocket dead simple.  The iMac made getting on the Internet dead simple.  The iPhone made putting the Internet, your phone, movies and music in your pocket dead simple.

And that is their secret. 

To make that happen, though, you need to focus.  Today we released a new enhancement of our free web conferencing product called Dimdim myScreen that makes sharing your screen dead simple.  Take it from me, making something hard easy isn't easy. 

Read on to see what Tim thinks about how Apple does it.  Focus is a very good thing.

Tim Cook:

"Yeah, that is a great question. The executive team of the company spends a lot of time thinking and discussing how to retain and recruit the best talent in the world, because at the end of the day—I know it's a cliche—but people are our most important asset by far, and it's people that deliver innovation, which is key to us. And so what else do we do other than that? Well, we are the most focused company that I know of, or have read of, or have any knowledge of. We say no to good ideas every day; we say no to great ideas in order to keep the amount of things we focus on very small in number, so that we can put enormous energy behind the ones we do choose, so that we can deliver the best products in the world. In fact, the table that each of you are sitting at today, you could probably put every product on it that Apple makes, and yet Apple's revenue last year was over $40bn. I think the only other company that could say that is an oil company.

And that is not from just saying "yes" to the right product which gets a lot of focus—it's saying no to many products that are good ideas, but just not nearly as good as the other ones. I think that this is so ingrained in our company that this hubris that you talk about, that happens to companies that are successful but then decide that their sole role in life is to get bigger, and they start adding this and that and this and that, I can tell you the management team of Apple would never let that happen. That's not what we're about. So, focus on people, and ensuring that it's a small list of things to work on and putting all of our wood behind those things, that's the magic behind us."

A view at my keynote deck of my presentations about MarketingApple Live!

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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