I am not an Apple fan. However, I do admit that I admire their Marketing Management and the cult they have created around the Apple brand. In this story I will describe the purchasing process of an Apple product by a fan, and how both the expectations and the emotional link with the brand are accomplished and reinforced.
My girlfriend is a graphic designer. She is a self-chooser for work and needed a notebook for her work. When asking her which brand she was to purchase, she had no doubt: She wanted a Mac. I explained to her the Apple computers were overpriced and encouraged her to do some research before doing the purchase. She did. She checked with some colleagues and in some graphic design communities. The response was unanimous: A graphic designer deserved a Mac and to be more specific a notebook from the Pro line. Any other brand would not be up to her expectations!
OK. So next step: Where to purchase? Again, she did some Internet research and she could only found two reasonable places to purchase from Madrid: The Apple Store if she wanted to go online, or a specialized Apple Store (K-tuin) in Madrid. No way she could find it in stores where the comparison with PCs would be possible such as PC City or Media Markt (she could actually have got it as well at El Corte Ingles, but could not find the info in the web).
So we went yesterday morning to this specialized store. What I found was awesome. It was a pretty big place organized by product and packed with demo products and salespeople willing to explain you anythingfrom Apple. If I have to emphasize something, I would say the incredible amount of accessories you could get for every Apple product, and the face to face classes they were giving in the store to Apple users.
We stepped in and asked a salesperson for a notebook. His approach was smart and asked what did we need it for (of course no questions about our budget!). He showed us a 1399 Euro notebook, but immediately jumped in the pricey Pro series, priced from 1950 Euro onwards. It was funny to me because according to him that was what my girlfriend deserved. I raised some bad intended questions trying to make a comparison with the PCs. He came out successfully and concluded: “Moreover, this is a Mac, and it is not the same”.
You can imagine what came next. My girlfriend went for the Pro notebook in spite of my complain and then… the really funny part came to me: The time for the accessories. The salesperson suggested us getting some nice accessories for such a premium laptop. He did not say explicitly but he was saying something like “If you have not compromised in your notebook, you will not compromise in XXX”. XXX turned out to be the case, the mouse, the extra battery, etc. Fortunately, those XXX only turned out to be a case and a mouse, but my girlfriend took a magazine where all those accessories where wonderfully described. In the end, those 1950 ended up in 2150 Euros, including a case I got for my i-pod (you will agree with me that it is impossible to resist such a brainwashing!). So she paid for the Mac products, signed up for a membership card (to be sure she got all the tips and knew about all the new temptations), and was informed that the i-phone will be coming next Christmas.
What was interesting to me was that the process did not stop there. I helped her installing the notebook and the experience was awesome. First, the packaging was superb. Really well designed. Everything in place and incredibly easy to find. Second, the installation process was a piece of cake. The manual was really easy to understand and installation process really logic and intuitive. Third, reaffirmation messages were properly showed up, such as “Welcome to world of Mac” when turning on the computer. And finally, subtle ways to keep you on board were displayed such as a straight connection to i-Tunes and the Apple Store, and a request for your info to make a member of the Mac World. In other words, they made themselves sure that did not feel that you overpaid a 100% premium price and created the mechanism for keeping you caught.
You can make your own conclusions. From my point of view they have been able to create a perception and dominate that perception. Some people call it branding, some prefer the term cult. Whichever the case, they are doing from my point of view a great job!
What do you think? Do you think they´ve gone too far with the niche management? Would you do something in a different way? Is it sustainable?
Prof. Ignacio Gafo
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La experiencia Apple es un modelo que ha sido trasladado a otros segmentos con indudable éxito. Los casos del lanzamiento de Mini, el universo Nesspreso o incluso el entorno de algunas marcas cosméticas de lujo como Khiel’s se han basado en la creación de un valor que va más allá del precio. Una vez que el consumidor entra en este mundo, su recompensa emocional supera su inversión económica.
Yo creo que la clave es desarrollar el concepto, la historia y el link emocional que permita hacer que el consumidor de nuestras marcas se conviertan en nuestros embajadores. Sino, pregunta a tu novia si recomendará un Mac a algún otro colega diseñador…
Jesús, no hace falta que pregunte a mi novia si va a recomendar a Mac… A pesar del altísimo precio que pagó está encantada con la compra, y está convencida de que ha hecho una buena compra. Eso sí, está teniendo problemas por que el software de serie es bastante limitado, y el original es extremadamente caro (más caro que el de PC).
Tienes toda la razón en lo que dices: El gran valor de una marca (y su consiguiente ventaja competitiva) está en lograr un link emocional con el consumidor. Cuando lo consigues, el precio se deja a un lado, pues el consumidor está dispuesto a pagar lo que sea.
Lo anterior tiene que ser de todas maneras compatibles con el nivel de expectativas creadas. Puedes crear un link emocional, ser cool y lograr una clara diferenciación, pero el cliente no es tonto, y tienes que estar a la altura. Por darte una referencia concreta, mira el caso Starbucks y el blog de estar marca.
En mi opinión, los números mandan y mas de 40 millones de unidades vendidas de IPod´s en las navidades pasadas, hacen presagiar que todo producto que lance Apple en el futuro será un tremendo éxito a nivel mundial. En cuando a laptops se refiere, aprovechan la ausencia de marquismo existente en el mercado, lanzando un producto estéticamente perfecto y con acabados como ningún otro. Luciendo en todo momento la “manzana” demuestran el poder de su marca y ofreciendo enormes posibilidades creativas y de diseño, consiguen el nicho más atractivo, aquel que quiere gastarse con mucho gusto 3.000 euros en un portatil, dada las ventajas que este ofrece. Esperemos al lanzamiento del Iphone en España y nos daremos cuenta del poder de Apple en el mercado mundial hoy día. Ahora bien, el producto debe ser excelente, siempre.
Ignacio,
I have to admit that I have always admired Apple from afar and had been a loyal PC user until a couple of weeks ago when I got a MacBook Pro. After using the machine for a couple of weeks, I can now understand why Apple develops such a cult following.
Yes the Apple is more expensive, but its not just premium you pay for a nicer design and a incredibly well developed brand. Quite frankly its a better machine on many fronts. From a power perspective its as good as any other machines out there. Mac OS is much more stable and efficient than Windows. Start up and shut down time is incredibly fast, it almost never crashes (if a program crashes it seldom freezes the machine), application installation and uninstall is a no brainer compared to Windows. Wireless connectivity is practically flawless. As far as peripherals are concerned, you basically plug anything in and it works. I still use a Dell display and a logitec keyboard and mouse and I didn’t even have to install any drivers to get it to work. Apples now run on Intel chips and with Parallel, you can run Windows and any windows program (apparently in a more stable environment than windows on a PC) I could go on and on…
For me, one of the best things, is the usability. Quite simply, apple software is much more user centric than PC software. Once you get the hang of it, you realize how poor windows is.
Apple doesn’t pack your machine with tons of useless software which slows down the machine like Windows does due to its many of its distribution agreements it has.
Yes you pay a premium, but if you amortize the premium over the life of the laptop and you compare that cost to the amount of time you save and headaches you avoid by not using a Windows PC, its an incredible deal.
Now to your question on niche management…the story of Apple is now about extending to mass market with a product set which the market has shown huge appetite for. The iPod/iTunes success has enabled Apple to build a customer base that now loves Apple products. That segment is now starting to migrate to Apple. The latest Gartner research shows that Q1 Apple notebook sales outpaced almost every other manufacturer (30%). Yes they start from a smaller share of market, but the growth is there…they are certainly moving from niche market to mass market with great success. The other driver here is that Microsoft, after having invested 6 billion dollars in Vista, has underwhelmed the market many people (like me) are now taking the leap to the Mac world.
What we are witnessing is perhaps one of the most successful brand relaunches in history and the most successful brand extension since Jobs rejoined apple. Not only has Apple rebounded, but now its now on a huge growth trajectory which has been handsomely rewarded by the market…stock price is up 1000% in the past 3.5 years!
And this is only the beginning…Apple has dropped the “Computer” from the name and is clearly positioning itself as the coolest consumer electronics company on the planet…the future launch of iPhone and iTV show where the company is headed…they want to own customers’ digital and entertainment lives.
There is no doubt that Apple is successfully moving beyond niche to mass market. My key question is how successfully will they be able to manage the hyper growth and can Apple stay fresh? Will there be Apple burnout (like starbucks) when it get too ubiquitous?
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