Cheryl and Kyle discuss the secret APPLE sauce
There is a secret Apple sauce. New and developing brands can learn from Apple as they seek to identify their own message and create connection to consumers. (Transcript provided.)
CH: Welcome to the Brandaide Conversation. I’m here with Kyle Hermans of Synecticsworld and we’re here in conversation about brands and one of which we’re chatting about is Apple. And it’s really an interesting question Kyle how Apple went from being a computer and/or a music player (like in the iPod) comparable to Microsoft or any other company that had a music player and computer system: what makes Apple different? Why is it people stand in line around the block for three days to buy a new iPod or new iPhone? Why is it that people stand in line all night long to buy a new iPhone 5 but they don’t stand in line to buy the new Samsung? What is it: what’s the secret Apple sauce?
KH: I think what the magic sauce is for Apple, is there are two things that come to mind. The first is Steve Jobs’ ability to have his company take a risk and take a risk and do things differently to what the rest of the market was expecting him to. And the other is that he focused dominantly on (or has focused dominantly on) the product experience and the user experience, and that stands apart. He’s – I guess from the autobiographies and from the different books that he’s written and the stories that we’ve been hearing that have come out of the different laboratories of Apple – he has had a vision and a strategic focus on what he wanted to do with his brand, what he wanted to deliver to the customers, and I think that’s what people stand in line to buy. What’s that next thing…
CH: But what is different about Apple from any other brand?
KH: I believe what is different about Apple from any other brands is that they have had a leadership that has allowed them to force the idea of risk-taking. What keeps them different is the ability to always do that thing that is different, and by doing that, it brings an immense amount of cool factor. It brings immense amount of cool factor that a customer and the consumer can own. They want to be like that: it almost motivates them, that if I own this, if I wear this, if I listen to this, if I interact with this, I stand for….this…
CH: …the cool factor…
KH: …I stand for the cool factor, I stand for the risk taker, I stand for that thing that is a little different and I’m willing to pay a lot of money for that experience.
CH: Well you know when I think back to when the iPod first launched about 10 years ago, remember the billboards all over the world with the dancing silhouettes and the white head-sets? At that point in time there was no such thing as white head-set, or up until that point in time, and suddenly it was the cool thing all over the world. And if you really examine what it is an iPod represents, it’s just a little metal box. It’s a piece of hardware that stores music. There’s been lots of others of those on the market: mp3 players, I think Microsoft even had one out for a while, but I don’t recall hearing much of any of those. As time has gone on it’s sort-of tied to the iPod. And then when the same kind of thing came forward with the iPhone, it was that white, slick cool industrial design that Steve Jobs just insisted upon. And somehow that translated to that “If I own that, I too will experience being cool”.
