Must-have message is the secret of Apple’s success

ONCE UPON a time, the zeitgeist was something you chased. Billions of marketing dollars were poured into pursuing the alluring, fast-moving and almost imperceptible curve that remained just out of reach for all but the hipper-than-thou few. But that was a long time ago. These days, the spirit of the age seems to be pretty much whatever Steve Jobs says it is.

Few products can even dream of receiving the kind of attention generated by Friday's launch of the iPhone, an event which, even if it may not have heralded a new technological age, underlined the fact that Apple has at least created new paradigms in the art of marketing and selling.

Mobile carrier O2 has recruited 200 new staff at its Scottish call centre just to cope with the expected demand; Carphone Warehouse confidently predicts that it will shift 90,000 units a day in the run up to Christmas; and across the UK media countless acres of frothing coverage are spewing off the presses.

"The iPhone has blown us away. In a decade of covering technology I've never been so excited by a single product," said Tom Dunmore, editor-in-chief of Stuff magazine."This is why the world has gone wild for Apple. Because they've come up with a device that will genuinely revolutionise the way we see, use and interact with digital media."

It is a remarkable achievement in anyone's book. A decade ago, Apple products were a running joke, the company was up to its eyes in debt and the only time you'd hear it mentioned was in business articles predicting its imminent demise. Yet in less than 10 years, the brand that Steve Jobs built has been transformed from a wheezing also-ran into a poster boy for the digital age.

Just as Cinzano and Milk Tray epitomised the aspiring consumer markets of the 1970s and Sony's Walkman range took the 1980s by storm, Apple is widely perceived as the most exciting, desirable brand of the early 21st century. There are thousands of digital entertainment products out there, but if you don't buy into the iThing then you just ain't cool.

So how did they do it? When the iPhone was launched into the crowded US handset market earlier this year, customers queued overnight for the chance to be the first to own one and 1.4 million units were sold within three months. As the European launch grinds into action a similar result seems inevitable, and this for an item which in technological terms is anything but leading edge.

"The iPod was not the first MP3 player to market and the iPhone will clearly not be the first music phone to market, but Apple's success has come through taking existing concepts and generating mass market appeal through design and user experience," said Jerome Buvat, head of Capgemini Telecom's media and entertainment strategy lab.

"Consumers are already fiercely supportive of the iPod, seen as a beacon of innovation and convenience in the market, and it will not be a great leap for them to want to take advantage of this functionality combined with that of a phone."

This, in a nutshell, is the key to Apple's reinvention: the company simply excels at connecting existing technologies with mainstream consumers. It did it with desktop computers by designing the iMac range, then did it again by producing an MP3 player that didn't require a Ph.D in artificial intelligence to operate.

Now history seems certain to repeat itself - this time with a multi-functional mobile device that uses the intuitive, touch-screen interface of which consumers seem to be so fond.

It would be a mistake to heap all credit on the devices themselves, however, as in the case of the iPhone Jobs is selling a product that will in real terms be hugely more expensive than any of its competitors. Of the 285 million handsets sold globally in the past quarter, the vast majority came virtually free, doled out as incentives to lock users into contracts with mobile providers. Yet Apple is pitching a phone that will not only require signing up to a lengthy 18-month contract with O2, but also £269 of the customer's cash.

"It's not cheap, but I really don't think that's going to a problem for the iPhone. The response I've had when demonstrating the device has been overwhelmingly positive, and when you combine that look and feel with the fierce brand loyalty that Apple generates, I believe it is quite capable of turning the entire market upside down," said Dunmore.

The ability to ignore all the accepted rules and yet still walk away with a virtual guarantee of success is the sort of thing marketing managers dream about. Achieving such status is an incredibly hard thing to do, however, and those in the know place Apple's success almost solely in the hands of its co-founder, Jobs.

When he returned to Apple's helm after a 12-year hiatus in 1997, Jobs found a company he believed had strayed too far from its core business. Immediately junking the stuttering range of digital cameras and printer products, he rewrote the corporation's mission as being simply "to create great products", and began to apply his famous obsession with design values and customer experience to every aspect of the Californian outfit's operations.

From insisting on a total aesthetic rethink to pouring thousands of man- hours into shaving a second off the iMac's boot process because customers don't like waiting, he effectively rewrote the rulebook for technology marketing.

Accompanying this drive came a welter of advertising that concentrated not on what they were to trying to sell, but who they were trying to sell it to. Jobs's "Think Different" campaign, depicting images of the most influential figures of the 20th century including Gandhi and Martin Luther King, touched its audience in way that wasn't expected from a computer company.

By appealing to people's desires, hopes and ambitions, rather than the technology it sold, Apple has benefited from a strong and loyal customer base that continues to grow.

"Apple's marketing is not completely focused on what is new'. Rather, they tend to reiterate core values embodied in existing product lines, appearing to mention the latest product almost as an afterthought," said Hugh Roberts, senior strategist at Patni Telecoms Consulting.

This brand resonance is something over which Jobs rules with an iron fist, constraining Apple's international press relations teams to a single unified message. Famously muted and eschewing the traditional industry practice of commenting on any and all issues, the corporation's PR people will not respond to any issue unless it has been handed down by central office. It's a practice journalists find hugely annoying, but one that has ensured that wherever you go, the iMessage is always the same.

One day they'll write a marketing bible based on the teachings of Jobs, and when they do, it will focus on four key principles: focus on the the customer to build loyalty; keep a simple, targeted approach to marketing that ensures customers hear your message clearly; act fast to beat the competition to new market opportunities; and, most importantly, concentrate on developing the best product or service.

If you get that right, then sales will inevitably follow.

"They build very attractive devices which are a great example of software and hardware integration and are thus very easy to use. Most consumer technology has had a habit of alienating simple' consumers, but Apple's products have been able to tap into the expectations of the average consumer by making devices that people can actually use without a great deal of technical knowledge," said Arash Amel, senior analyst at Screen Digest.

"But it's also true to say that the company's PR and marketing approach is superb. I think you just need to see one of Jobs's keynote speeches, and the euphoria surrounding it, to see that Apple have been very clever to build up the complete image of the brand, rather than just marketing product by product. When they bite, the consumer is effectively buying into a lifestyle, not just a piece of technology."

This article was first published in The Sunday Herald