How Apple, Inc. is the Master of Advertising
Apple
Computer, Inc. was launched January 3, 1977[1]. Thirty years later, the company name
was changedcompany dropped “computer”
from its name, not because they no longer sell computers but because they now sell
also digital music players and phones. Apple is a rich company but it did not get to
where it is simply on the basis of the quality of its products. Apple has also mounted highly successful
marketing and ad campaigns. In these campaings, as I will show in the
following, Apple presents its products as lifestyle choices. When consumers buy Apple products, they
become Apple people. Apple
as a brand seeks to brand its costomers.
Many of their most impressive advertizes, for example, do not show an
image of a single Apple product. Instead
the seek to portray the Apple person, a person with whom, certain segments of
the population may identify with very strongly…. very
stronl to Apple, Inc. compbecause they are now much
more than just a computer company.
Since its creation thirty-one years ago, Apple has been on the cutting
edge of the technological frontier.
Starting only with computers and programs, they company has grown to
encompass a myriad of products, including digital music players and cellular
phones. Apple is one of the richest
technology companies in the world, and they are able to sell so many products
because of their amazing advertising.
Apple, Inc. does more than market their products, they market a lifestyle. Apple products are growing in popularity because they are so trendy and unique. Apple, Inc.’s major advertising campaigns, 1984, Think Different, Switch, and Get a Mac, do not feature any computers, which is an interesting choice when you consider they are advertising a product. The reason Apple did not feature any of their products in any of these ads is because they are selling an idea and a lifestyle rather than a specific product. Apple knows if they can build a brand loyalty people will continue to purchase their products, even if they do not show the products in their ads.
Apple began their advertising campaign on television during the 1984 Super bowl with what is known as the “1984” campaign. Apple says the Macintosh computer will be “a garden of pure ideology”. The commercial took aim at the George Orwell novel Nineteen Eighty-four. The novel is about a man, Winston Smith, living in an authoritarian regime that prevents him from having his own ideas and thoughts. The totalitarian regime in the novel owns all the media, creates propaganda for the government, changes all printings from the past when they feel it is unfavorable for their cause, and greatly limits freedom of expression. One of the most famous taglines of the book is “big brother is watching you”. In every room in the country there are cameras and microphones that know everything everybody says and can punish those who speak their mind or try to express themselves. The tagline at the end of the commercial is “you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like Nineteen Eighty-four”. The point Apple is trying to get across in this ad is that the new Apple computer will allow you to think for yourself and express yourself however you chose. Apple contrasts itself with Nineteen Eighty-four because they want the consumers to know they are free to do anything they want on Macintosh computers.
Apple’s next big advertising campaign was “Think Different”. These television ads, which started showing in 1997, showed pictures of Albert Einstein, Bob Dylan, Martin Luther King Jr., Richard Branson, John Lennon, R. Buckminster Fuller, Thomas Edison, Muhammad Ali, Ted Turner, Maria Callas, Mahatma Gandhi, Amelia Earhart, Alfred Hitchcock, Martha Graham, Jim Henson (shown with Kermit the Frog), Frank Lloyd Wright, and Picasso. Apple refers to these infamous historical figures as “rebels” and “trouble-makers”, and states they have “no regard for the status-quo”. The point they are trying to get across in this ad is that Apple is similar to these historical figures because they also disregard the status-quo by producing such innovative products. Apple wants to be seen as a company that, like these figures, will “push the human race forward”. After the first “Think Different” commercial, another ad came out. It was one of the first Apple commercials to compare the Macintosh to a computer running with Windows. The commercial featured a snail with an Intel Pentium II processor on its shell, and talked about how the chip in a Power Macintosh G3 is twice as fast. Before this ad, few Apple commercials attacked other kinds of computers. Now their biggest campaign, the “Get a Mac” campaign does nothing but attack Windows. Another commercial for this campaign featured a computer talking about the folly of computer programmers who did not plan for the year 2000 when they programmed the computers, except for Macintosh computers. The “Think Different” campaign tried to make Macintosh computers seem more rebellious than other computers and unique.
Apple’s third big television campaign was the “Switch” campaign, which started airing in 2002. The purpose of the campaign was to ease people’s fears about switching from a PC to a Mac. One of the reasons people were not purchasing Macs was because they were afraid they could not merge their files and that it would be more difficult to use a Mac. These ads featured ordinary people talking about how difficult Windows is to operate and that Macs are just much simpler. One of the commercials featured a teenage girl who talked about her PC deleting her paper, but never mentioned about switching to a Mac or explained why Macs would not do that. The ads also aimed to ease the fear that Macintosh computers do not have all the capabilities of Windows, such as the ability to run Microsoft Word. Some of the commercials in this campaign tried to convince people it was simple to switch to a Mac, others tried to convince people Word was too difficult.
Apple’s most current television campaign is “Get a Mac”. This series of commercials features actor Justin Long as ‘Mac’ and John Hodgman as ‘PC’. The series compares Mac’s and PC’s on a variety of levels and aims to show Mac’s superior ability at everything, and PC’s inferiority. Ads that are more recent have simply been criticizing Microsoft Vista and not talking about Macintosh computers at all, except to mention they do not have Microsoft Vista. Besides the MacBook Air, the “Get a Mac” campaign is currently Apple’s only advertisement for their computers, the rest are iPod and iPhone commercials. Because of their wittiness and cast, the “Get a Mac” commercials are some of the most liked Apple commercials ever.
Apple’s commercials are quite costly and are constantly in rotation, and to afford this, they must have a large advertising budget. Between the 1980’s and the 1990’s, Apple increased their advertising budget from fifteen million dollars to one hundred million dollars.[2] Over the last seven years, their advertising budget has increased tremendously. In 2001, just before the “Switch” campaign, Apple Inc.’s advertising budget was 100 million dollars.[3] At the end of 2001, Apple, Inc. needed to increase their advertising budget because they released the first generation iPod. Apple has several avenues of advertisement they pursue, like billboards, television commercials, and magazine ads. From the time of the “Switch” campaign, Apple has spent massive amounts of money advertising. In the first financial quarter of this year, from the end of December 2007 through March 29 2008, Apple spent $304,000,000 on marketing and distribution.[4] This is up $16,000,000 from the financial quarter ending on September 29, 2007.[5] In the same fiscal quarter they spent $304,000,000 on marketing and distribution, they claimed $7,512,000,000 in total revenue.[6] In a little more than six years, Apple Inc. increased their marketing and distribution from $100,000,000 a year to around $100,000,000 a month. This large increase is partly due to the iPod and the new iPhone, but the complexity of the graphics of their commercials and the rights to play songs has also caused a need for a bigger advertising budget.
Like their “Switch” campaign, the first iPod commercials were not flashy and were rather plain. It featured a man at his MacBook dancing at his desk, updating his iTunes, then unplugging his iPod from his computer and continuing to rock out to his music on his iPod, dancing around his apartment, and eventually dancing out the door. The commercials ended with their iPod slogan “A thousand songs in your pocket” and then the Apple symbol and the words “Think Different”, a throwback to their “Think Different” campaign. This commercial was used to spread the word on iPod and vaguely explain how it works so people would be more inclined to buy it. This commercial featured “Take California” by The Propellerheads, a British electronic duo, who achieved limited success after their music was featured in this commercial. This iPod commercial started the trend for the following commercials; there was someone dancing and a modern pop/rock song playing.
After this commercial, Apple’s iPod commercials changed drastically. Because everyone now understood what iPod’s are and how they worked, the ads did not need to feature someone uploading songs to the iPod. Now the iPod commercials feature the black outline of a person dancing with a colorful backdrop. They figure is listening to and iPod, which is colored white. Along with their changing iPod, Apple has evolved their commercials, changing from plain black figures dancing, to artists playing their songs. The new iPod Nano commercials, featuring the Feist song, feature every color of the new Nano playing the music video for the Feist song “1234”. The new iPod commercials now features the entire band Coldplay performing their latest single, “Viva la Vida”. This new commercial was released roughly a month before Colplay’s new CD is released.
The iPod commercials mostly feature artists who are not very well known, such as Rinôçérôse and Cut Chemist. Apple has been able to obtain the rights to play some very famous older, artists songs in their commercials, such as Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, and U2. They also feature some new artists who are famous, like Daft Punk and Jet. Both Daft Punk and Jet allowed Apple to use their most famous songs, “Technologic” and “Are You Gonna Be My Girl” respectively. At the end of the Jet iPod ad text appears that says “Mac or Windows”, letting the potential customers that they do not need to have a Mac computer to be able to use an iPod. In total, Apple Inc. has produced thirty-one different iPod commercials since their first commercial premiering in October 2001 and their most recent commercial released in May 2008. The list of artists, appearing in chronological order is: The Propellerheads, Black Eyed Peas, N.E.R.D, Jet, Feature Cast, Steriogram, Ozomatli, U2, The Vines, Caesars, Daft Punk, Gorillaz, The Resource, U2, Eminem, Wynton Marsalis, Rinôçérôse, Wolfmother, Bob Dylan, Cut Chemist, Prototypes, The Fratellis, Quantic and Nickodemus, Paul McCartney, Feist, The Bird and the Bee, CSS, Mary J. Blige, Brendan Benson, The Ting Tings, and Coldplay. The first commercial U2 was featured in was a commercial for the special edition U2 iPod, which was black and featured an engraving of their signatures on the back of the iPod. There was also a deal on the purchasing of their music on iTunes if you bought their iPod. Every song that has been featured in an iPod commercial has seen a spike in sales shortly after it begins airing.
Apple Inc. needs to have a large budget for their advertising campaigns because they have to pay the actors, and fund the editing. In fact, they should be paying more because they are using other artists work in their ads. Several artists, now, and in the last decade, have entered into lawsuits against Apple, Inc. for copyright infringement on their works of art. The photographer Louis Psihoyos entered into negotiations with Apple for the right to use his “wall of videos” imagery in the advertisements for Apple TV. Apple then pulled out of the talks and used the imagery anyway.[7] This, unfortunately, is not Apple’s only time being sued for copyright infringement. Along with other artists, other companies have sued them for things such as their name or programs.
Apple Inc. prides itself on being a trendy and artistic company, which is a necessity for any product targeted for their audience. The two biggest groups of consumers of Apple computers are design and art companies and students. Although there are not as many Apple customers as other computer companies (holding only 5% of the computer market) Apple does enjoy the highest brand loyalty of them all. The “Get a Mac” campaign has played off the “Mac culture” that has sprung up in the last two decades. The “Mac culture” began around the time of the “Switch” campaign in 2002. In the first commercial, a self-proclaimed “Window’s Guy” discussed the follies of Windows and how being a “Mac Guy” is much simpler. Studies have found that Mac users are 58% more likely to create a webpage and have above-average household income and education levels.[8] Mac has such loyal followers that the opening of new Mac stores has become somewhat of a spectacle. People campout for an entire day and night and there have been times when the line to go into the store when it opens is half a mile long. Another reason Mac’s are so popular with students is that Apple has cut deals with many elementary, junior high, and high schools so the schools can afford to buy Mac’s. For many students, this is their first experience with a computer, and as I stated earlier, Apple has the highest brand loyalty of any computer company. In the 1990’s, Apple came out with an ad featuring classrooms around the world, showing how many children use Macintosh. The commercial ends with the statement that more children are using Macintosh computers to share ideas on the internet than any other computer.
Apple’s highest selling line of products is by far their iPod line. In the first fiscal quarter of 2008, iPod made up 42% of Apple, Inc.’s sales, totaling 37.6 million dollars.[9] Since October 2004, the iPod line has dominated the MP3 market, claiming 70% of sales.[10] In total, Apple Inc. has sold 140 million iPod’s since the first generation was released in October of 2001. Apple sales were low in 2001 and increased at a steady pace until early 2005 when their sales took off. It is no coincidence that Apple spends the bulk of its advertising on iPod's.
A running theme in Apple Inc.’s commercials beginning with the “Switch” campaign is a bashing of Windows and Microsoft. Although they often compare the strengths of Apple computers, they mostly discuss the weaknesses of Windows and Microsoft. None of Apple Inc.’s major advertising campaigns- 1984, Think Different, Switch, Get a Mac- feature any of their products. Because they do not show the product, it makes it obvious they are trying to sell a brand, not a specific product. The older iPod commercials do feature a silhouette of the iPod. For each product they make, Apple makes a commercial featuring it, but an overwhelming majority of commercials do not feature any product at all.
Since the release of the iPod, music has been featured in nearly all Apple computer ads. The MacBook Air commercial shows someone taking the computer out of an envelope, and the end of the commercial features the text “the world’s smallest notebook”. The song they play in the background of the commercial is “New Soul” by Yael Naïm. Yael Naïm was an unknown artist until Apple used her song in their MacBook Air commercial. After the commercial’s release, “New Soul” climbed the charts and made it to the Billboard Top 100 in early 2008. Until the iPod was released, only a few of the Apple commercials featured any contemporary musicians. They did have background music, but only a couple of the commercials featured songs with lyrics and it was primarily the same beat repeated. The first Apple commercial to feature a well-known song was in the iMac color commercial. The song that played while the various colors of computers spun around the screen was “She’s Like a Rainbow” by Rolling Stones. Apple always had music playing in the background of their commercials, but it was not until the first iPod commercial that they featured a contemporary artist and songs with lyrics in all of their other computer commercials.
From Apple’s conception, they have claimed the Macintosh is a more user-friendly computer. It all started with their fifth television commercial that showed an office computer and the three large binders of information you must know before you can use the computer properly. They then showed the Macintosh computer and its manual, which was about half as big as one of the binders required for the other computer. Comparing Macintosh to Windows has been a running theme in Apple Inc.’s advertisements, all the way up to their current advertising campaign, “Get a Mac”. In the “Out of the Box” commercial, Mac and PC are both sitting in boxes, Mac talks about all the great things he can do straight out of the box, like make a movie or a website, while PC has to read a large manual, download new drivers, erase the trial software, and put the remaining parts together from other boxes. Macintosh featured many ads in the 1980’s and 1990’s that made PC’s look slower and hard to use than Macintosh’s. One of these commercials, the “Grows With You” commercial featured a PC and a Mac and displayed the changes to the computers that occur as your family demands for the computer increase. For the PC, they showed how you must take it apart to make changes that only required a plug-in for the Macintosh. Another Mac commercial that came out during that time comparing Mac’s superior speed was the “They Have a Mac” ad. It featured a father asking his soon if he wanted to see dinosaurs, when the son replied yes, the father inserted a disk into the computer, waited while it loaded, and had to do several other things before his son could see the dinosaurs. His son lost interest in waiting and left to go to a neighbor's house because “they have a Mac”, showing that Mac’s are easier to run than PC’s.
Before I began my research, I had a few ideas about Apple’s advertising. However, as I continued my research, I found much of what I had thought was untrue. I knew that they had drastically increased their advertising budget over the last few years, so I did not expect them to have as many advertisements in the 1980’s and 90’s as they did. Based on my original knowledge of Apple commercials, I did not think they featured artists’ songs in their commercials, but I found they have been doing that for nearly ten years. I also thought Apple only started bashing PC’s and Word in their current campaign, “Get a Mac”, but I found out they have been doing that since the companies first computer, Macintosh, was launched in the 1980’s. I also found that, although their main advertising campaigns do not feature their products, they have at least one commercial for each product they have ever produced.
Works Cited
1. Apple, Apple Frequently Asked Questions, 2007, http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=107357&p=irol-faq#corpinfo1
2. Leander Kahney, “Its All About the Brand” Wired Magazine, 2002, http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/commentary/cultofmac/2002/12/56677
3. United States Security and Exchange Commission, Apple Inc. Quarterly Report, 2008, http://media.corporate-ir.net/media_files/irol/10/107357/AAPL_10Q_Q2FY08.pdf
4. Apple Inc. Income Statement, 2008 http://finapps.forbes.com/finapps/jsp/finance/compinfo/IncomeStatement.jsp?tkr=AAPL&period=qtr
5. Melanson, Donald, Apple Facing Two Lawsuits for Alleged Copyright Violations, 2007, http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/04/apple-facing-two-lawsuits-for-alleged-copyright-violations/
6. The Nielsen Company, Net Ratings, 2008, www.Nielsen-Netrating.com
7. Apple Inc. Press Release, (22 January 2008). Apple Reports First Quarter Results.
8. Marsal, Katie, iPod: How Big Can It Get? Apple Insider, 2006.
[1] Apple, Apple Frequently Asked Questions, 2007
[2] Leander Kahney, “Its All About the Brand”, Wired Magazine, 2002
[3]Leander Kahney, “Its All About the Brand”, Wired Magazine, 2002
[4]
[5]
[6] Apple Inc. Income Statement, 2008
[7] Melanson, Donald, Apple Facing Two Lawsuits for Alleged Copyright Violations, 2007,
[8] The Nielsen Company, Net Ratings, 2008
[9] Apple Inc. Press Release, (22 January 2008)
[10] Marsal, Katie, iPod: How Big Can It Get? Apple Insider, 2006.