Mac Branding Database

MAC Branding

In 2004, Apple sold 807,000 iPods, surpassing for the first time the number of Macintosh computers it sold (749,000). What is Mac’s brand strategy since then?

MAC sales increased dramatically since 2004 . In 2004, Apple's overall PC business was growing more slowly than that of its Microsoft- and Intel-based competitors .

According to Leander Kahney , if Mac users are so loyal, it is due to the brand. The current CEO, Steve Jobs, spent $100 million marketing the iMac, which was a run-away hit. Apple continues to spend lots of money on high-profile ads like the "Switch" campaign.

Marketer Marc Gobe, author of Emotional Branding, said Apple's brand is the key to its survival. Apple is the archetypal emotional brand. It's not just intimate with its customers; it is loved. "It's like having a good friend," Gobe said. For example, Apple's flat-screen iMac, was marketed as though it were created personally by Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive, not by factory workers in Asia.

"Macintosh was always bigger than the product," Steve Hayden, the ad's copywriter, told AdWeek. "We thought of it as an ideology, a value set. It was a way of letting the whole world access the power of computing and letting them talk to one another. The democratization of technology -- the computer for the rest of us."

Douglas Atkins’ definition of “cult brand”: “A brand for which a group of customers exhibit a great devotion or dedication. Its ideology is distinctive and it has a well-defined and committed community. It enjoys exclusive devotion (that is, not shared with another brand in the same category) and its members often become voluntary advocates. ”

Apple's core calling: creating the next cool thing for the world's consumers .

The strategy of the company is to sell hardware rather than software

March