The Science of Marketing Apple

Apple’s approach to product innovation, marketing & branding is legendary. Despite having a minimalistic presence in the advertising Arena, the company evokes sufficient interest from people who matter the most, customers. Apple’s customers are usually early adopters and if you give a high quality, well designed product to early adopters, then you can certainly expect others to follow them, which has always played a central role in Apple’s success. It has done a wonderful job of creating an Apple culture, where people are waiting to take cues from the company and advertise repeatedly through the simplest forms of advertising – social marketing, in other words word-of-mouth.

For me I believe, social marketing is the most successful way to reach out to your audience. Even before a product’s purported launch, there are whispers in the market, prompting people to speculate about it, write and even review without getting their hands on to the product. There has always been speculations on every generation of iPods Apple has launched, there had been plenty of talk about an Apple phone, years before the iPhone was launched, and of course people have anticipated newer versions of each of Apple’s products, be it a G4, Macbook, iMac, Mini or even indigeous add ons such as the Time Machine and the Apple TV. On top of this, it also offers an incredible operating system and some clever applications such as the iTunes. The latest buzz among apple disciples is the launch of a new product code named “brick”. What exactly brick is, nobody knows for certain. But it has garnered significant marketing attention world wide, with bloggers making various conjectures about the product, which includes a newer version of Macbook, an all new Apple TV and even an updated Mac Mini. Some blogs even claim that Brick is a Dual Screen foldable Net Book.

A leading Apple community on the web quoting an unnamed resource has reported that “Brick” is not a product, but a radical new manufacturing process, which apparently will carve out the newer versions of Macbooks and Macbook Pros from a single aluminum block. However, Apple has put an end to all speculation by launching improved thinner version of Macbooks with faster graphics processors and an iPhone like all glass trackpad and an extended battery life. Of course the lower part of the new Apple chassis is made from single aluminum blocks. Whatever the product, it has created enough buzz already. People are certain to queue up in stores either to get their hands on to Apple’s new offering or to catch a glimpse of it.

So what is the secret of Apple’s success? The company has always relied on extending the customers digital lifestyle by offering products which reinvents the way people look at those products. Above all, the company’s business strategies are based on creating products as a support system to its core rather than exploding the market with a wide spectrum reinforcing the company’s brand perceptions. For a technology intensive industry in which Apple participates, keeping a fresh image is absolutely imperative as products evolve constantly. The Apple brand is leveraged in such a way that it can expand from computers to music players and phones because they are known for “thinking different” and therefore setting an expectation of originality. Consumers don’t just buy an Apple product; they buy the idea of what Apple stands for. It is a known fact over the years that much of the success of products or services derives from the effect consumers have on one another’s decisions. Apart from anticipating what features individual consumers might find desirable, Apple has adopted strategies that take social influence into account. Macbooks, IPods & iPhones have managed to get more exposure among average consumers, which could be attributed to social influence and these average consumers are more likely to consider other Apple products, which further enhances the brand image and values associated with the product. Unlike other companies, Apple has always created products which are add ons to its core product. An iPod or an iPhone needs iTunes, Apple TV needs needs an iPod, and of course for the related applications to work, you need an operating system and Apple again stands out with its offering. To run the operating system, you need hardware and for that you have a sleek range of iMacs, Macbooks and Minis.

Consider this, not many would have thought that iTunes would be product on its own. It is an application, which many would have believed was developed to support the iPod range of MP3 players. But today, it is a market place contributing handsomely to Apple’s profit share. The strategy here is simple. Sell an iPod worth £200 which holds 30, 000 songs and sell songs on iTunes for 79 pence. Ideally (If there’s no piracy) to fill up the 30000 capacity iPod you would need £23000 worth of songs and as of September 2007, 150 million iPods in different capacities have been sold worldwide. Consider the average iPod sold is of a 5GB capacity and do the numbers taking into account people buying music from other sources and downloading pirated music from the internet. Although conventional wisdom states that Apple is loosing money on iTunes which it is making up by selling iPods, at a 30 % margin on every song sold, the profits are still enormous. Not to forget that it is expected to increase its market share to 85 % this year. Here’s a company, which believes in designing and developing superior products with innovative industrial design and and markets it with a similar level of creativity to profit from it. It is an ideal example of marketing success.