Saturday, October 10, 2009

The Apple Way: Step 4 of 5 to Insanely Great Marketing


Component 4 is, once again, an area where Apple is second to none.

 
Component 4) Make your message memorable.


You have to think "bite sized morsels", not "entire meals". Make it easy to repeat. Make it interesting enough to be repeated.

Some older readers will remember Apple's slogan from the late 70's "Byte into an Apple." That sounds pretty lame by today's standard, but in the late 70's, the targeted user was the geek and the technophile. The use of the term "byte" connected with this crowd.
 
I already mentioned the iMac "
Three steps to the Internet" slogan. For the iPod it was “1,000 songs in your pocket”. "The computer for the rest of us" was an effective slogan for the amazing 1984 introduction of the Macintosh. 


However, the single greatest Apple slogan has to be "Think Different."  That ad campaign, with the interesting assortment of cultural icons, was the longest running and most popular of the Apple campaigns. It succinctly stated the Apple culture and invited the uninitiated to join that culture. It also reestablished Apple as the "counter culture computer company" after losing that status during Jobs' absence.

But Apple did more than invite. They enticed people to join the Apple counter culture. For a company that once flew a pirate flag over their corporate headquarters in recognition of Steve Jobs' famous question, "Why join the Navy if you can be a pirate?" there was better gold than pirate gold to be had. That gold came from going mainstream. Apple's ability to slip quietly into the mainstream without losing the excitement of being part of the counter culture is nothing short of astonishing. I doubt it could have happened in other generations, but Mr. Jobs was part of the counter culture generation that went corporate and he was able to make that work for Apple.


More on that in a future blog.

An excellent article on how the "Think Different." ad campaigned turned around Apple: http://lowendmac.com/orchard/07/apple-think-different.html



James Snider is the Business Development Director for Accelerant Marketing Alliance, LLC == Marketing, Communications and Design
Corporate Marketing Department ... one hour at a time
AccelerantMktg.com

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