Pure marketing genius

With the passing away of Steve Jobs – whom I am sure needs no introduction – everyone has (appropriately) lauded him as a technological genius, even comparing him to Thomas Edison, the great American inventor (think “light bulb”).

It is easy today to praise or talk-up an Apple product but when Steve Jobs made his comeback in 1997 the dominant view was that Macs were not mainstream- Kevin-James Fenech

While apt to portray Jobs as a creative and technological genius, he was to my mind, and above everything else, a phenomenal marketer. He had the gift to conceptualise and sell a vision and the tactical know-how to build a brand. He also understood the function-emotional orientation of the industry; PCs were portrayed as lifeless machines while Macs became human almost.

It is easy today (2011) to praise or talk-up an Apple product but when Steve Jobs made his comeback in 1997 (after a 12 year hiatus away from Apple) the dominant view was that Macs were not mainstream. The PC, the Windows Operating System and Microsoft Office products were the undisputed international standard. Steve Jobs had to break this mould of consumer perceptions and market prejudices. He managed to do this by employing innovative, creative and inspiring marketing. In my opinion, the Steve Jobs miracle was his marketing genius.

Allow me to explain: In 1997, Apple launched its “Think Different” campaign which in essence positioned the company as a force that would change the world as we knew it and with the benefit of hindsight – vide the iPod, iTunes, iPhone and iPad – we know this to be true. Now when marketers’ talk about “positioning” what they mean is the process of creating a brand image or identity in the minds of the target audience.

This is precisely what I consider to be the genius of Steve Jobs: He had the knack, the ability, to visualise a future and communicate this to a sceptical or unconvinced audience and win them over. Trust me, this was no mean feat. At the peak of its powers (1990s) and market dominance, Microsoft and the PC market per se seemed invincible and unconquerable.

Steve Jobs was capable, however, of breaking this monopoly of technology, of consumer behaviour, of brand loyalty and disrupt an entire industry and in the process change the world. I mean just last week my three-year old son made me realise just how much Apple has conquered the old PC world; he referred to his children’s toy lap-top as his iPAD!

Don’t misunderstand me: Apple still had to deliver technologically advanced products that customers wanted, needed, appreciated, but I can quote many a great invention which wasn’t a business success. So innovative products are not enough; they need intelligent marketing and that is what Steve Jobs gave Apple. He turned Apple’s then market weakness – namely that it wasn’t mainstream – into a strength. He made Apple “exclusive” or something that only the intelligent, the daring, understood and appreciated.

Rewind back to the 1997 “Think Different” ad campaign and later the 2006 “Get a Mac” ad campaign and you’ll know what I mean. For those of you who can’t remember just visit You Tube and search “Think Different” or “Get a Mac”. He positioned the company in people’s minds as something different but better and changed perceptions far more completely than any of the lifeless or expensive competitor ad campaigns of the time.

He touched an emotional chord that resonated with a new generation of consumers who had had enough of the established, legacy, PC market and its cohorts who seemed to be manufacturing hardware as a commodity. This having been said, as soon as Apple penetrated the market sufficiently enough to no longer be seen as the upstart, the underdog, he then changed marketing tact and with the successful launch of the iPod plus iTunes in 2001, the message became “the beauty of simplicity”; Apple became a life-style choice.

In 2007, the launch of the iPhone again marked another tactical shift in Apple’s marketing. The product itself was so innovative and “different” that the marketing campaign was a graphical demonstration of how the product worked (again vide You tube to see what I mean). With the launch of the iPad2 in 2011, Steve Jobs finally spelt out Apple’s philosophy namely that its mission was to make the world we live in better. In the words of Michael Wolff (marketing journalist), “Jobs was a brander, a pioneer of the product as experience and identity and personal statement.”

In the final analysis, the whole point of marketing is that it makes your customers believe and want to buy. I feel that most of what some local businesses do with their (sometimes large) marketing budgets is (to be brutal) a complete waste of money. The marketing employed by these companies simply doesn’t talk to its target audience and make them want to buy. Consumers are immune and indifferent.

Come on, be honest with yourself: How many advertising messages are you bombarded with on the radio, while browsing the net, while flicking through one of those many magazines or when watching TV! Do they inspire you? Make you want to buy? Or encourage you to identify with the product and what it stands for? Branding and marketing is meant to make your customers identify their philosophy, their take on life, their situation, with your product. Steve Jobs successfully and repeatedly did this despite the harsh competition and that is why I list him as one of the greatest ever marketers. We can all learn from him.

I don’t normally quote huge chunks of text in my articles but I think this is one time when it is worth breaking my own self-imposed rule.

Below is a transcript of the 1997 “Think Different” campaign (check out on You Tube for the full feature advert), which I think explains what I have tried to articulate in this article namely that marketing and branding, if done well, can change the way people think:

“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 invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward.

“Maybe they have to be crazy.

“How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art? Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written? Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?

“We make tools for these kinds of people.

“While some 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.”

To me this is: Pure marketing genius. Thank you Steve Jobs. You’ve restored my faith in the power of marketing and branding.

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Mr Fenech is managing director of Fenci Consulting Ltd.