Does The Apple Marketing Philosophy Apply to Your Business?

Author: tracysigler | Posted: January 13th, 2012 | | Tags: Apple, Apple Marketing Philosophy, Kevin Rose, Mike Markkula, Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson | 1 Comment »

I’m pretty sure it does. How can Empathy, Focus and even “Impute” not apply to any business?

For Christmas I invariably come away with a stack of interesting books to read. I knew I wanted Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson but after hearing Kevin Rose mention he started reading the book and switched to over the audio version, I added the latter to my wish list. The unabridged version is over 24 hours!

Somewhere in the third hour Mike Markkula and his now famous Apple Marketing Philosophy are discussed. I’ve listened to this two minute segment probably a dozen times.

Markkula was a young venture capitalist with his fortune coming from stock options he received while at Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel. He became an investor in Apple when the company was just Jobs and Wozniak, and later even was company president. According to Isaacson he also became a “father figure” to Jobs and taught him about marketing and sales.

Jobs said “he emphasized you that should never start a company with the goal of getting rich. Your goal should be making something you believe in, and a making company that will last.”

After reading Markkula’s original one page paper it’s easy to how much he influenced Steve Jobs.

The Apple Marketing Philosophy

Empathy
We will truly understand their needs better than any other company.

Focus
In order to do a good job of those things we decide to do we must eliminate all of the unimportant opportunities.

Impute
People DO judge a book by it cover.
we may have the best product, the highest quality, the most useful software etc.; if we present them in a slipshod manner, they will be perceived as slipshod; if we present them in a creative, professional manner, we will impute the desired qualities.

Mike Markkula
January 3, 1977

In fact, I think this philosophy describes the public Steve Jobs as we think of him today.

Empathy – Jobs thought he and Apple knew what the customers want even before the customers knew. It was Apple’s job to tell people what they wanted in his opinion, based on a deep understanding of emerging macro-trends. As Isaacson put it “an intimate connection with the feelings of the customer.”

Focus – When Jobs returned to Apple in 1997 he immediately re-focused the company by eliminating licensing of the Apple operating system to other hardware companies. He then focused on new innovative products like the iMac.

Impute – Jobs was famous obsessing over product packaging and even the layout of computer internals. There’s a marketing expression that “everything communicates” and I think Jobs lived by that. Consumers can form strong and  lasting opinions based on first impressions.

Three simple points, but they are much easier to say than implement. Let’s get to work!

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