Comments on: The Price Point: Apple Ads

By: Amanda

Amanda — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 07:13:06 +0000

A doctor friend told me recently that the iPhone’s next incarnation is scheduled to be released in a version that includes a glucometer for diabetic iPhone users, complete with lancet. When they say there’s an app for that, apparently they’re not kidding around.

By: weekend horoscoop* goes biweekly! -- Snoop du Jour

weekend horoscoop* goes biweekly! -- Snoop du Jour — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 19:49:49 +0000

[...] also started a new column for Mark Blankenship’s awesome blog The Critical Condition today, The Price Point. This week I took on television advertising, in particular ads created for Apple products. Please [...]

By: ferretrick

ferretrick — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 17:37:04 +0000

The MAC ads do exactly what they are designed to do very well, which is carving out a small market of fiercely loyal customers by setting them apart from buyers of competitors products. There’s an actual term for this marketing strategy but I can’t remember it now. Its similar to niche marketing, but I don’t think that’s it.

In any case, what you do is cultivate customers who will be fiercely loyal to your brand, and only use your brand, and see themselves as superior for using your brand. That’s what’s behind the whole “Are you a Mac or a PC?” It goes beyond merely cultivating customer loyalty; its trying to make using your product almost part of the person’s identity. And if you’ve ever run across a devoted MAC user, you’ve seen this in action. Some of them are scary.

By: Rae

Rae — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 14:07:48 +0000

What Apple does well and what I think you’ve captured with two ads you highlighted, Holly, is tap into the populace’s vernacular. The marketing firms they hire excel at understanding their audience. I don’t know the history of ads between Apple and PC companies well enough to know if they created the idea of being a Mac or a PC BUT they certainly took the idea and cultivated it. The same with the “there’s an app for that” slogan. My friends and I now use it all the time. Even though we’re using it to make fun of how Apple’s commercials make it seem like the iPhone can do ANYTHING, it’s still achieved its goal. We use their slogan and think about their product while doing it.

It’s also why I think Microsoft’s new PC ads fail. I actually understand why they thought it’d be a good idea but, in the end, the cornerstone of those ads are the Apple ads. It’s why I watch them, I instantly start comparing them to the PC vs Mac ads and, even as I’m watching a Microsoft commercial, I’m thinking about Apple. I feel like they’re just endorsing the idea that Macs are cooler than PCs, after all why else would they have to try so hard to show us all the people who do use PCs? (The newer ads that focus on the cost of PCs vs Macs? Much better. If only they’d get rid of the “I’m a PC” part at the very end.)

Of course, the great irony in the Mac vs PC ads is that John Hodgman is in fact infinitely “cooler” than Justin Long could ever be.

By: Rae

Rae — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 13:42:07 +0000

@Jen: Now who is buying into ads? If you made up a PC that has the exact same specs as a MAC, they’d be about the same price with the same “starting” applications (the days of PC’s coming pre-packaged with lots of applications are long gone). PC companies just give you a lot more options of customizing whereas Apple doesn’t. Whether you need the level of hardware Apple offers is certainly a valid question but you aren’t getting a lesser computer for more money.

Of course, the ads are still disguising some of the truth. Because, as I said, if you paid the same price for either computer, you would end up with similar apps. Meaning it’s not true that you wouldn’t be able to do the same thing on the PC that you can do on the Mac. Still, what the majority of the Apple ads are really claiming is that the Apple applications are more fun and easier to understand/use. Whether that’s true or not is up for debate but I don’t see how it’s fraud. What company doesn’t claim that their product is the better one in their own ads?

And since this might get me accused of being a Mac, let me just say that I use both on a daily basis and pretty extensively. If I had a label, it’d be a PaC. Hence why I’m aware of what you get when you buy one or the other. My lack of a preference means I price with hardware in mind… not what company made it.

By: jen

jen — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 12:35:03 +0000

Hate those apple commercials, but mostly the Justin Long ones. I feel like that whole series skims the truth so lightly that they verge on fraud. Every advantage they attribute to a Mac is NOT one that is unique to Macs- PCs can do that too. Every bad thing that they attribute to PCs (with the implication that their own system is free of these things) is certainly not unique to those systems. This ad is in direct response to the Microsoft ads that point out that sure, if you have a lot of money to spend on a computer, get a Mac. but if you’re not rich and you still want something good- like most real people in the real world- get a PC. Notice how they counter this- not by denying that their product is WAY more expensive for less actual applications- which it is- but by acting like they do so much more in functionality for that higher price. but who wants a virus free computer when you can’t afford to do anything with it? Every reason they give is a half truth. And you got sucked in by the “cool”. Apple certainly does cool better than anyone else though, i’ll give you that.