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Steve Jobs explains branding

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Re: Steve Jobs explains branding

#21

Post by Andrew_Quentin »

tc wrote: post #9

Apple's "Think Different / Change the World" ad was a brilliant piece of marketing. But it doesn't seem that really stuck as the core value of their brand. If Nike's message is "we hang around great athletes," Apple's message today is "we hang around the young and hip," [1] which is different than "we hang around people who change the world." You could argue that these are somehow related, that the young and hip woul…

we hang around the young and hip

Is that not the same as Evian's slogan - live young, or pepsi's marketing way back to the younger people. Everyone wants to be young and perhaps hip, even really old people want to get into the beat. Not that many people really want to or aspire to change the world however. Let alone the older age group, say in their 40s.

Re: Steve Jobs explains branding

#22

Post by [deleted] »

ynniv wrote: post #14
tc wrote: post #9

Apple's "Think Different / Change the World" ad was a brilliant piece of marketing. But it doesn't seem that really stuck as the core value of their brand. If Nike's message is "we hang around great athletes," Apple's message today is "we hang around the young and hip," [1] which is different than "we hang around people who change the world." You could argue that these are somehow related, that the young and hip woul…

The success of the iPod made the Apple brand young and hip, but their core customer has been (and may again become with the iPhone and iPad) people who value their time and are not computer geeks per-se. That's a difficult thing to say in a crowd of computer geeks, but may contextualize the iOS/Android debate around here.

[deleted]

Re: Steve Jobs explains branding

#23

Post by Arun2009 »

Maybe it's because I'm in a cynical mood right now, but Steve Jobs looks like he's performing for an audience. I'd have loved to hear what people like Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates really think, but whenever these guys speak, I suspect that they compensate for the fact the people will be listening to them, and that what they say will influence their lives' work.

You're left with no other choice but to reverse-engineer their real philosophies from how the respective companies behave in the market.

Re: Steve Jobs explains branding

#24

Post by hjalle »

tc wrote: post #9

Apple's "Think Different / Change the World" ad was a brilliant piece of marketing. But it doesn't seem that really stuck as the core value of their brand. If Nike's message is "we hang around great athletes," Apple's message today is "we hang around the young and hip," [1] which is different than "we hang around people who change the world." You could argue that these are somehow related, that the young and hip woul…

for those who haven't seen it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jULUGHJCCj4 . As you said, a brilliant and motivational ad.

Re: Steve Jobs explains branding

#26

Post by protomyth »

tc wrote: post #9

Apple's "Think Different / Change the World" ad was a brilliant piece of marketing. But it doesn't seem that really stuck as the core value of their brand. If Nike's message is "we hang around great athletes," Apple's message today is "we hang around the young and hip," [1] which is different than "we hang around people who change the world." You could argue that these are somehow related, that the young and hip woul…

Think Different was to keep their current users and the iPod campaign was meant to get the mass market. Both needed to be done to survive.

Re: Steve Jobs explains branding

#27

Post by Andrew_Quentin »

wmeredith wrote: post #8

I'm basically reposting my comments on this video from my company blog... The big takeaway is in the first few lines of this video: "This is a very complicated world. This is a very noisy world and we're not going to get a chance... to get people to remember much about us. No company is. And so we have to be really clear on what we want them to know about us." The whole branding/selling thing goes like this... Lunch…

A company like apple does not have 5 seconds. People know about apple and their products much that they need to.

You give an elevator pitch if you are unknown to an investor. Perhaps a company which is unknown might have 30 seconds to tell the world - if they can afford it - who they are, so that they can get others to remember their brand.

Once their brand is remembered however, you have 30 seconds to maintain your statues quo. Like some Cadbury ads. If you remember the one with the gorilla drumming, it hardly tells us anything about Cadbury, let alone the most important thing. It just makes us feel well good and like Cadbury because unlike other adverts this one was quite cool and so Cadbury keeps being cool.

Re: Steve Jobs explains branding

#28

Post by emil0r »

thought_alarm wrote: post #20
Marticus wrote: post #4

Here's what gets me: The disconnect between that video at the end of his presentation versus Apple today. "Think different... as long as we approve your application for download on the app store." Admittedly a pretty cool video though.

The App Store the is epitome of "Think Different". It has done an astounding job of attracting developers to their platform, and no competing "Store" does a better job of connecting developers with actual users. Yet there was no shortage of people who said it would never work, and there's still no shortage of people who keep saying they're doing it wrong.

I thought it was people saying they're doing a lousy job of explaining the rules of approval?

Re: Steve Jobs explains branding

#29

Post by loire280 »

erikstarck wrote: post #16
tc wrote: post #9

Apple's "Think Different / Change the World" ad was a brilliant piece of marketing. But it doesn't seem that really stuck as the core value of their brand. If Nike's message is "we hang around great athletes," Apple's message today is "we hang around the young and hip," [1] which is different than "we hang around people who change the world." You could argue that these are somehow related, that the young and hip woul…

Yeah, as soon as Apple removed "Computers" from their name they also stopped being a "tools for the passionate"-manufacturer. They now sell primarily media consumption devices. Nothing wrong with that, it's just not the same core Jobs talks about in this video.

The DJs at night clubs, the knob-twiddler guys in indie rock bands, and the film students at the local university are all using Macs to make their art. In fact, I'd say Apple's devices and the tools they create to publish to those devices have done a lot to make these creators' lives easier.

Think about how much more music people listen to thanks to the ubiquity of iPods. Would the indie rock movement have had as much traction if it weren't for all those college kids looking for something to fill their iPods?

Not to mention iMovie, GarageBand, and iPhoto, plus their professional-level counterparts in Final Cut, Logic, and Aperture.

Re: Steve Jobs explains branding

#30

Post by alsomike »

tc wrote: post #9

Apple's "Think Different / Change the World" ad was a brilliant piece of marketing. But it doesn't seem that really stuck as the core value of their brand. If Nike's message is "we hang around great athletes," Apple's message today is "we hang around the young and hip," [1] which is different than "we hang around people who change the world." You could argue that these are somehow related, that the young and hip woul…

I think reading Apple's marketing as being about hip and cool says more about the anxieties and insecurities of the hacker culture than it does about what Apple is actually doing. In the first place, coolness is way oversaturated in advertising, trying to project a cool image is the fastest way to get lost in the noise. Authenticity is a much more important brand value to project than cool, and Apple succeeds at that.
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