Coming off the heels of yet another successful Apple launch debut, it’s increasingly clear that Apple is on top of their game in a way like no other. Which other company could turn an ordinary press conference into a live global event?
The secret lies beyond their product line and design standards; it lies beyond even Steve Jobs’ emphatic adherence to Apple’s core philosophy, which is that the user doesn’t always know what they want.
Looking at the company’s latest product lines and revenue models, I’d be a fool to call them anything less than what they are, which is:
• A design firm
• A media platform
• A publishing company
• A software powerhouse
• A computer builder
• A movement
IGNORE YOUR CRITICS As an entrepreneur, you’ll hear a lot of people tell you that you need to reach out and figure out what people want, which means listening to your critics, often times more patiently than you’d like.
TURN ORDINARY INTO EXTRA ORDINARY For quite some time, PC fans enjoyed the work of buying their own parts and building their own tower systems. At the same time, PC makers were building standard hardware for standard applications.
JUSTIFY YOUR PRICE We’re in a time when pricing strategies are all over the place. People don’t know what to charge, and in many cases, prefer to race to the bottom instead of pricing strategically to a market that can bear the cost.Once more, Apple ignores the standard by not only pricing their technology more than 2x what their competitors charge, but doing so without blinking. How can they get away with it?
COMMUNICATE WITH YOUR AUDIENCE It makes no sense to talk about things like megabytes, gigahertz, and processing power to customers that simply don’t care about technical jargon.Take a look at any Apple product page and you’ll find that though they do discuss product specifications and technical information, it’s hidden behind the benefits that their audience is truly after.
EXTEND THE EXPERIENCE Have you ever heard of an unboxing? I hadn’t either until recently, when I learned that not only was I not the only one keeping Apple packaging post-sale, but that there are legions of people that record the actual process of unwrapping their newly purchased Apple products.
BUILD A TRIBE It’s no secret that Apple has built one of the most hardcore fan bases of any product and of any time. There’s a reason they’re called “fanboys.” Most of the chatter is out of jealousy more than anything, but Apple doesn’t really care. They know that they serve an elite audience, and rather than back away from that fact, they embrace it.
BECOME “THE NAME” You don’t buy tissues, you buy Kleenex.You don’t buy MP3 players, you buy an iPod.You don’t buy a smartphone, you buy an iPhone.Have you noticed what they’re doing here? Apple isn’t content with being a leader in sales alone, they want to own the market itself, which explains why they’ve engineered iTunes as the major music provider that it is, and why the iPad, having the luxury of being the first, has now set the trend for future tablet devices.
BRAND LOYALTY Apple Inc. was founded only a year after Microsoft, at the moment it is on the pinnacle of its popularity and success. Unlike most of its rivals, Apple especially is not known to care for the budget of a commoner. In fact, it won’t be wrong to say that Apple, ever since it’s foundation only targeted a certain brand conscious class. For that very reason, none of the products of Apple are meant to fall within the budget of a normal man but more and more people are covetous of Apple products than ever before, since it is established to represent a certain ‘class’
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