From the personality of its creator to the design of its products and excellent word of mouth, the Apple brand has understood the fundamental rules of marketing. How, beyond addiction, Apple reminds us of some fundamental marketing rules.
First of all, it's probably worth remembering that in marketing, as in communications, while there may be such a thing as good practice, there is no such thing as a 'recipe', a set of instructions or a guarantee of results. More often than not, it's a combination of phenomena, and a certain discipline that ultimately relies heavily on common sense and sincerity. We have partly unconscious chemical relationships with brands, like those we have with each other, which lead us to like some or dislike others, without necessarily being able to explain it.
The model of the relationship with the brand is also unique for another reason, which stems from reasoning by the absurd: it is unique because if it were not, it would be reproduced by others! So, instead of trying to reproduce or copy it, it is useful to be inspired by some of the great rules of common sense that Apple reminds us. Rules that are often forgotten, so unconsciously obvious that we forget to apply them conscientiously and rigorously.
1/ The star is the product. Apple has always had an absolute passion for the product. A product that is sublimated, iconised, and first internally before it is iconised by the public. It is this obsessive culture for the product that has made the brand so strong, and the public's attachment so exclusive, even excessive. If you don't sell a product you don't believe in, you don't recommend it either, any more than you could claim fashion victim status if it wasn't a point of pride. This product culture is essential, even if it is obvious. In fact, Bill Bernbach made it one of his main principles to explain that advertising alone could do nothing without the product: "The magic is in the product".
2/ The brand embodied. Apple is of course another star, also elevated to the rank of icon, its founder, Steve Jobs. The brand is therefore embodied, many are not, and therefore do not bring this human aspect, which can leave one indifferent, which can irritate, but which can also create this particular relationship to the brand, through the history and charisma of the leader who embodies it. The brand then acquires an additional personality. Made of flesh and bone, the brand then has that little extra soul that inanimate objects can have, as Lamartine already suspected. A personality, an aura, a myth, which, it should be remembered, existed long before the tragic fate of Steve Jobs. It was not the drama that created the myth. Many brands, groups and companies today lack the faces, the blood, the stories that can create that emotional bond, that extra touch.
3/ Innovation, always. When Apple innovates in markets such as music with the iPod and iTunes, or telephony with the iPhone, the brand does not bring a new product, but changes the entire market. Its innovations are so disruptive and relevant that they become systemic. And because the innovation is major, because it changes the offer by revealing new uses, it is necessarily followed and copied, but the pioneer always keeps the advantage. It can sometimes lose this advantage in commercial terms, but the brand that initiated it retains this premium for the leader, the avant-gardist. Application icons have invaded all mobiles today, on all screens fingers tap and enlarge images, but only one brand has the credit for these innovations. Copying, for the sake of reducing risk or investment, is actually the way to increase it. Investment in research and innovation is a crucial issue, it is also a culture and a state of mind, perhaps the very essence of entrepreneurship.
4/ The customer is the master. Through innovation in technological fields, Apple has deliberately decided to put technology at the service of the customer, and not the other way round. From then on, everything changes, everything becomes easy, different, and at the same time, the customer is sublimated, valued, becoming himself, or at least he believes he is, gifted, even an artist! To suggest it is not to formulate it. Today Samsung, which has excellent products with its Galaxy range, is calling on the consumer to become "creative". Apple gave them the impression that they were becoming creative, without the need to tell them.
5/ democratisation, to go from the circle of initiates to the general public. At the time when digital technology and new technologies were beginning to emerge, Apple made them accessible, appropriable, democratised them, and even made them fun. But the risk of democratisation, of the mass market, is of course that of trivialisation. For a long time, Apple was a brand of insiders, working on "Macs", these strange computers, of "creators", artists, avant-gardists, who only communicated with each other, due to a lack of compatibility. The challenge of new models, of regular innovations, is to maintain this circle of avant-gardists of a brand that has spread widely. Anyone can have an iPhone, but not yet the iPhone 5.
6/ Recommendation and word of mouth. The best brand ambassador is not the brand itself, but its customers. Apple is undoubtedly the brand that succeeds most in getting people talking about it rather than talking about itself. The most blatant examples of this are product launches and 'revelations', which receive press coverage even before their release that no advertising could generate, making the product necessarily exceptional and desirable. But the second level of reading is to understand that this communication is a communication of 'peers', and the credit I give to others is much greater than the credit I give to the brand's top-down commercial discourse. More often than not, when an advertising campaign appears, it simply shows the - famous - product that everyone has already told me about, that everyone has already sold me. What is said about the brand is more powerful, more credible than what the brand says about itself.
7/ Beauty and designOf course. Not only are Apple products innovative, powerful and fun, but they are beautiful, they are designed, with clean and simple lines. And with Apple, everything is beautiful. The product of course, but also its packaging and accessories. These products are also showpieces, narcissistic mirrors. In our society of the cult of beauty, of aestheticism, some would say of appearance, the brand itself becomes an object and a school of design. It must be acknowledged that it did not invent this trend, but it appropriated it and applied it to its field of activity to make itself even more desirable.
No doubt other characteristics could be associated with the brand, but what is interesting, perhaps even reassuring, is that this is neither a magic formula nor a matter of chance. It's a subtle combination, a balance, a conjunction of phenomena that complement and interact with each other, without any notion of hierarchy, since some may be more or less important depending on our own degree of sensitivity. Apple is reminding us of a number of fundamental rules. The mistake would be to believe that Apple's success was due to its staging, or to Steve Jobs' talent as a showman. Of course, this was, and still is important, but the essential thing is not in the froth: the essential thing is in the fundamentals of the brand. The main risk factor would be to imagine for a single second that this is a given and that the brand doesn't constantly need to reinvent itself and win back, like the challenger that every leader must remain. The best thing that Apple can do is not to get carried away!