Hello,
I would like to write today concerning the marketing strategy of Apple corp. People love Apple. Anywhere you go you will see iPhones, iPods, and iMacs (iffy on this last one). Apple's marketing strategy revolves around their status as a fashion product. People want to be seen with an Apple product whatever it may be. The problem however with being any company in the electronics market is the odd reality that at some point you need your product to fail so that the consumer can then be sold a replacement. With Microsoft's computer market share of around 90%, the whole world practically uses their product, and is accustomed to their product, so Microsoft doesn't share this problem with Apple. Apple is in a unique situation. They want to build brand loyalty, but computers have a very small number of moving parts and we've reached a point in the industry where there aren't enough advancements to make computers obsolete. I'm actually typing this blog on a 2009 model Dell computer. Up until recently, I had used a laptop from 2003 that worked fine and is still working, but decided to upgrade. Think about how things like this affect Apple. With such a low market share, they cant afford to sell they're customers a computer once every 10 years. Apple overcame this with the iPod. Since the computer industry isn't really developing, they found an industry that was, the mobile music market. Since 2001, Apple has released an annual version of their music device and raked in the sales and the market share. How does Apple keep you coming back every year? At the start, it was with new features, maybe a new look, more storage capacity or a smaller design. All of this changed however with the release of the iPhone. The release of the iPhone gave the consumers a completely new device in the iPod touch, which was released with the phone. It also gave Apple more control. Now, enough with the history, lets get into Apples marketing. See, Apple kinda, "dupes", its customers. I'm not trying to offend anyone, but lets look at a scenario. (as of 2015 this analogy can be applied to most all apple products Mac/iphone/itouch/iwatch etc.) You go to the Apple store after seeing all of the ads about the superiority of Macintosh computers, you've seen the sleek aluminum design, heard of the extremely clear HD display. You go to see one for yourself. This is the first piece of Apples marketing machine, the product has to look amazing. You go into the store, (actually, your probably already sold by this point, everything here on after is just icing on the cake), and see all of the products lined on tables that actually match the product. The entire store matches the product as well if you care to notice. Anyway, you play with some of the computers, you enjoy the new look and feel of Mac OS, maybe you've had a bad experience with windows? Maybe you like the "different look of he computer?, or maybe you look at the price tag and assume that a higher price will ultimately return higher quality and reliability. Whatever the reason may be, you just have to have that computer and you leave the store that day with one in tow. The first part of Apples brilliant marketing strategy has done its job, they have your money and you have your computer. Now back to what was written earlier, How can Apple retain you? To answer this we must look at the perception that computers depreciate physically over time. This is a well founded viewpoint for the most part. Most people have tried to use a slow computer and we can all agree that it is not fun. These experiences cause people to believe that computer components have around a 5 year useful life at the most. Bought a computer in 2010? Time to upgrade? Not necessarily. See, as written above, computers have few moving parts. A machine with fewer moving parts has less parts that can wear out. A computer processor produced in 1995 should theoretically work just as well today as it did 20 years ago. However, around the year 2005, something happened in the computer industry. Computers became smart enough, smart enough for what you ask? Well smart enough to browse the web, process word documents, transfer and edit files, do pretty much the same stuff we do now 10 years later. This is a challenge for computer companies, because now, hardware and software have both reached a sort of peak. The only thing computer companies can do is update their operating systems to handle larger files and programs more efficiently, and watch the hardware industry do the same. Where does this leave a company like Apple? Here we see the second stage of Apple's marketing come into play. They have sold you a new computer, now they want you to buy a new one and the sooner the better. Apples first move is the operating system. To stop the spread of viruses, both Apple and Microsoft update their operating systems as a free service. However Apple does a complete replacement of the operating system every year, this means that they have full control of the performance of your computer and they get to tweak that performance every time you update. They claim this complete replacement is for the betterment of the customer, "more features", "faster boot/loading times", this couldn't be more false. Apple wants your computer to slow down, not fast enough for you to notice of course, but fast enough so you think its just part of the natural process of hardware deterioration. Apples target timeline is 4 years (2 for iphone). Thats right!! After only 4 years of use Apple is hoping they've bloated your machine with "security and performance updates", so that its slow and you can then be sold a new one. This of coarse, doesn't happen with everyone, but it is Apples goal and their customers perception of computer use life is VITAL to their marketing strategy and sales. Lets look at a best case scenario. Going back to the analogy above, lets say that the OS updates didn't slow down the computer you purchased and it is still working perfectly 7 years later. Here is the final part that makes apples marketing strategy possible. Actual hardware failure. Your using your Mac one day and all of a sudden it frezzes and turns off. you panic and rush your machine with important data to the apple store to be repaired. Only to find that the machine falls under Apples "vintage" hardware catagory and the Mac doctors wont touch it. Even if they would they probably couldn't fix it. Remember the sleek, thin, light aluminium design that sold you on day one? That design is so complicated and delicate that it is prone to breakage, this is Apples last ditch effort to get your money again. If you had a 7 year old PC, it would've been serviceable. And you could've probably repaired it with readily available parts cheaply bought on ebay. Or found atleast someone to do the repair. It would certainly be cheaper than buying a new computer. Planned hardware obsolescence, this is the end result of Apples marketing strategy, bring the customer in with a different and fashionable design, slowly degrade the product internally thereby steering the customer tword a new one, and finally, as a last resort, use the very design they fell in love with to kill their machine. By the end of this process, Apple has already released a new product that you want, with just enough new features for you to take the whole ride again and shell out the cash. Maybe you'll gat lucky and get 7 more years of use. Or maybe, they 7mm thick casing of your new laptop doesn't provide adequate airflow and causes your computer to run hot, damaging the components only 2 years into use, or maybe, the cooling ducts clog with dust and the machine fails because you cant clean them and Apple never let you know to come by and let them clean it. Who knows, with annual design changes, everybody has a different product so the end result is different for everyone. As far as I'm concerned, Apple has some of the best marketing in the world. Imagine if car companies all sold cars with the same engine, same specifications, but one company just produced a great body style, charged a lot more for it, and made it break quicker and still raked in 42.1 Billion dollars revenue. Now that would be quite a feat.
