February 07, 2012
The Man, The Myth, The Legend and Apple’s Marketing Philosophy
This past weekend, I finished the book Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson and found it profoundly impactful. What struck me most was Jobs’ love for living “at the intersection of the humanities and technology.” This intersection shaped Jobs’ attitude towards design, business and innovation.
Apple’s marketing philosophy is perfectly summed up by Mike Markkula, a critical investor of Apple and father figure to Jobs. Markkula stresses three points:
- Empathy. An intimate connection with the feelings of the customer: “We truly understand their needs better than any other company.”
- Focus: “In order to do a good job of those things that we decide to do, we must eliminate all of the unimportant opportunities.”
- Impute. It emphasized that people form an opinion about a company or product based on the signals that it conveys. “People DO judge a book by its cover,” he wrote. “We may have the best product, the highest quality, the most useful software etc.; if we present them in a slipshod manner, they will be perceived as slipshod; if we present them in a creative, professional manner, we will impute the desired qualities.”
Jobs’ passion for his products carried over into Apple’s advertising efforts. “There’s not a CEO on the planet who deals with marketing the way Steve does,” said Lee Clow, advertising wizard who created Apple’s “1984” ad and worked with Jobs for three decades. Jobs also worked with Clow on his “Think Different” campaign – without a doubt one of the most memorable campaigns in history.
"Think Different" (Steve Jobs voice over)
Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.
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