Why Apple Connects With Consumers
Talk about Brands that have grown to be Lovemarks and you got to think of Apple. For the fourth year in a row it tops the Fortune List of the World's Most Admired Companies. It ranked no 1 in Innovation, no 2 in People Management, no 4 in Use of Corporate Assets, No 7 in the Quality of Management, No 2 in Financial Soundness, No 10 in Long Term Investment; No 4 in Quality of Products/ Services. The World's Most Admired Companies 2011 are in that order: Apple, Google, Berkshire Hathaway, Southwest Airlines and P&G.So what makes Apple sell one million iPhones in three months from its launch? Or a million iPads in 28 days? Is it the charisma of Steve Jobs? Is it a great product design or is it a brand that screams cool in whatever they do? It is all of that but clearly it is the consumers who are selling the iPads. They made it cool to BUY music at a time when downloading pirated music was common place. They supplement the company's marketing campaigns by gushing to their friends about their Apple products. Thats the real power of the brand. It is not what you tell others about how good you are but what others say about your brand. The consumers own the brand. So when there were problems with the latest iPhone, the consumers were indulgent in forgiving the company.Here is my take on the consumer trends that make Apple resonate with the consumers:1. Behavior is Age Independent: 50 is the new 40 while 40 is the new 30 or 20 if you please. Carrying the iPad screams that you are cool, very cool. Never mind that many of the older people still use the iPad to just see mail and surf the web. Many of them who have taken version with 3G have actually not subscribed to the 3G service according to the McKinsey report (click here). Doing what the youth are doing makes the over thirty feel hip like nothing does. Playing games is increasing among those in 30s and 40s. This is no longer something that kids do while their parents are nagging them to do homework.2. Teens Doing Stuff That Was Only For Adults: So if the story on the Secret Life of Indian Teens is to go by, then 15 per cent drink alcohol when they are bored and 47 per cent play games on their mobile. This is in India. Teens are now using Blackberry to stay in touch with friends. The Blackberry ads in India are clearly aimed at the youth and even the school going kids in the metros. Electronic gizmos connect this generation of digital natives who are referred to as "iPAD TEENS" who crave Cell phones, laptops, iPods, PSPs, Kindles, DVD player and the Apple iPad combines it all. Everybody has it. That's what 71 per cent of teens say when asking for fancy frills-MP3 to camera phones.3. Connected 24x7 : Dropping costs of communication has created a generation that is always connected. Mobility is big. So the iPod made it easy to carry music along . Then came eBooks which are becoming more and more ubiquitous. And now comes the iPad that combines all the gizmos into one lightweight thingy to carry around - in the kitchen as you talk to the family members; or while you snuggle up in bed to watch a movie - a laptop can be harder to get into bed with (LOL!!). Video is increasingly popular as a way to learn. According to InformiTV
Global internet protocol traffic will increase by four times from 2009 to 2014. Cisco forecasts that the biggest single component of that will be internet video, overtaking peer-to-peer file sharing as the biggest single usage of bandwidth by the end of 2010. The combination of all forms of video will continue to exceed 90% of all global consumer internet traffic and by 2014 nearly half of it will be high-definition video.
4. Increasing Desire to Unleash Your Creativity: The coolest jobs all have creativity as the central driving force. Being an author, movie maker, RJ, Singer etc - exactly what is easy to do on Apple's products. Remember the time when the advertising folks used to be using Macs while the rest of the office folks were using the regular PCs? Today there is an increasing tribe of people who use PCs in the office but have an Apple when they want to get creative.5. Individualist: The iPod was the best example of how technology gives us permission to be an individual. Plug in the earphones, switch on the music and the world gets shut off. The MTV report on Youth Trends also taps into this insight. (See the slideshow)What are the other underlying consumer trends that could be driving Apple and its products? What do you think?
============Also do readHow the iPad 2 Will Revolutionize Education by Fast CompanyiPad - insights into how it is being used. A McKinsey reportTrendsSpotting's 2010 Consumer Trends Influencers