A rare, wonderful and inspiring look inside the greatest marketing organization ever created.
Many businesses create Ogilvy style campaigns that sell benefits (rather than features). For example:
"Only Dove is one-quarter moisturizing cream"
"At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock"
Apple understands that they are essentially in a commodity business much like Nike. It's tough to sell benefits in that environment when your benefits are the same as everyone else's. In the market they're in, everyone already understands what the benefits are and most people can use a spreadsheet, word processor or web browser equally well on an Apple or PC.
What Apple did is create a new intangible and very powerful benefit with Think Different:
The words "Think different" translated into an Ogilvy style headline would say: "If you buy this product your friends and peers will think you are different and you will stand out from the crowd.". It's not possible to communicate that directly because it's an embarrassing subject. The Think Different campaign takes a wonderful indirect approach to addressing a sensitive issue and communicating that benefit.
This approach of creating a new intangible and emotional benefit in a commodity market has worked so well for Apple that they have incorporated the marketing approach into the entire organization including their sales strategy and their products. Whereas before their products focused on differentiated features, now they focus on emotional differentiation. Apple stores are an emotional experience.
Apple's smaller market share facilitates this approach because their customers have been the minority. So you're automatically "different" if you buy Apple. These days that is less true, so it will be interesting to watch the marketing organization evolve as their market dominance increases.
Here are my notes from the video:
1. Marketing is about values
2. You don't have much of a chance to get people to remember you.
3. You have to be really clear on what you want people to know about you.
4. A great brand needs investment and caring if it's going to retain it's relevance and vitality.
5. At the time of this video Apple's brand had suffered from neglect.
6. Don't talk about features.
7. Nike makes you feel something different from a shoe company.
8. Nike honors great athletes and they honor great athletics.
9. The question Apple asked was "Our customers want to know who is Apple and what is it that Apple stands for? Where does Apple fit in this world?"
10. Apple is not about making boxes to help people get their jobs done.
11. Apple's core value is that "We believe that people with passion can change the world for the better."
12. Apple is going back to their core value mentioned in 12.
13. "Values and core values mostly shouldn't change" ~Jobs
14. "The things that Apple believed at it's core are the same things Apple stands for today"
15. The ad is a way to communicate this.
16. Jobs is clearly and intentionally emotionally engaged with the ad and that engages his audience.
17. The ideas above were distilled into "Think Different."