Posts tagged Mac

Following the launch of the iPad, Apple is being hailed as a marketing genius. But what has ensured this company’s phenomenal success and consumer love?

The internet has been buzzing today following the launch of Apple’s new “magical” product, the iPad.

Rumoured for the past couple of months, news sources across the globe raced to put the official word online and the rest of the world watched.

I am still amazed, hours later, by the amount of hype one company with one new product launch could generate.   

Today’s big reveal didn’t actually give watchful Apple enthusiasts anything that wasn’t already rumoured. We’d heard about the partnership deals with publishers, we’d heard about the size, we’d seen mock-ups and we were sure about what applications would be included. So why was this still the event of the year in tech land?

Even as the media and technology worlds have anticipated this announcement for months, Apple has said not word one about the iPad prior to its unveiling, apart from Steve Jobs earlier this week confirming that a revolutionary product would indeed be launched. Furthermore, instead of prototypes, Apple makes patents – and that’s what really kicked this whole thing off.

Apple is just one of those company’s where everything it does is hailed as ‘revolutionary’ and its ads and promo videos certainly do well to tell consumers the company is about to change communication and technology as we know it forever. It uses such phrases in its launches as “this is what the future looks like” and makes its viewers feel like they are part of history. One day soon we’ll be saying, “do you remember where you were when the iPad was launched?”

Apple is also the coolest brand in the world, according to last year’s CoolBrands list, from the SuperBrands survey. Furthermore, visitors to Brandchannel.com claim Apple is the brand they cannot live without. It is the marque they most want to sit next to at a dinner party and with which they most identify.

In tech land, Jobs is “the ultimate showman who keeps the audience excited the whole way leading up to the reveal,” said the New York Times last week.

And more often than not, Apple has delivered on Jobs’s showmanship. People remember the debut of the iPhone three years ago, and Apple’s promise that it would change everything. It promptly did and even before we knew Apple was launching a new product, we pondered about what the company would do next. It’s one of the few companies that keeps us guessing and where the rumour mill is aptly fed. Check out such sites as Apple Insider and 9 to 5 Mac – not a day goes by without something new to say about Apple.

A recent report in The Mac Observer, also says that Jobs is quite the marketer – everything he does is with a higher purpose. There was a suggestion at the beginning of the month that Apple actually quietly engages with the media in a way that does not leave fingerprints. The way Jobs pulls this off is to release only pieces of specific information to journalists that are friends with Apple employees. The information is handed over in what would seem like a normal conversation and banking on the nature of journalists and their need to be first with the news, that information is usually ‘leaked’ out in news reports or at least does the rounds in the blogs. This is all controlled that way and the journalist walks away thinking they have something, they just have no idea how big or small that information is in the bigger picture.

But why is Apple one of the only companies that can create such buzz around a product that starts off as a rumour? The answer is innovation and the company’s promise that it’s about to change everything. In the case of the iPad, not only is it saying it will save the publishing industry from near extinction, but will also be a catalyst for new marketing channels and in turn more revenue in the suffering advertising industry.

But Apple products are pretty expensive, so how does the company convince consumers to pay a premium for a product that isn’t an absolutely necessity?

Apple products look cool, feel cool and, most of all, everyone wants one.

Apple isn’t just a brand, it’s an experience. Something proved by its some 170-odd worldwide Mac stores. A young, hip, and technically knowledgeable staff is friendly without being hard-sell. They won’t boot you out for using the Macs and free Wi-Fi. Apple has managed to turn a computer into a day at a digital park – and it’s all free. Its image is undeniably cool and in a stroke of genius they’ve made technology available to even the most hopeless technophobes out there by launching products that are so effortlessly easy to use.  The iPad is no different.

The reason for all the hype around the iPad? Simple, brand loyalty. Apple products rarely let people down, but they do leave them wanting more. Apple is one of the most talked about and buzzed brands on the internet, why? People are constantly surprised and impressed a company that never seems to rest on its laurels but instead seeks to continuously innovate and shake up the market. Apple is out to change the world by changing the way we do the things that we do everyday.

It’s marketing is always focused on the product, what it does, what it looks like and what it can bring to a users life. You’ll never see an Apple ad and wonder what the hell the campaign is taking about. It keeps it simple and as demonstrated by Apple’s record results this week, shows us that Apple truly is a brand we can’t and shouldn’t live without.