It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that Apple has truly revolutionized the technology industry for past decade or so and continues to do so. Leaded until relatively recently by Steve Jobs, the exceptional marketer who passed away in 2011, Apple was able to position themselves in the consumers’ minds as an industry innovator seeking to “transform the way we work, learn, create, and share” as cleverly stated by the new iPad air advertisment. A product that adds significant value to the customers, but at the same time, is simple to use. That’s exactly what Apple product’s are about, and this ad makes the perfect case for it by comparing the new iPad with a pencil, arguably the most used tool by humankind. Brand positioning excellence.
Although they are are clearly stretching the truth a little bit with such a blunt statement, from a marketing perspective it can be safely said that Apple does a remarkable job leveraging its comparative advantage through smart advertisements. It reminds customers that apple is present all around the world and used by all kinds of segments of the population: from artists to scientists, from students to important scholars. It is for everyone to use, useful for pretty much every task one can think of accomplishing, while remaining a tool that is as straight-forward to use as it gets nowadays.
Even though some might say that Apple’s groundbreaking innovations are gradually decreasing (particularly judging from the apparent lack of innovation in the iPhone), Apple’s brand definitely remains an example of simplicity excellence. Their marketing team knows this, so they are very likely to keep delivering products and respective ads depicting this key core value. Ken Segall’s book, on Apple’s obsession with simplicity, makes a great case explaining the significance of this value to the company.
