While Apple has sold 18,000 iPads at the US AirForce and is expected to announce tomorrow the release of the iPad 3, already the world devoted to the brand in two apples filled pages last Thursday under the evocative title Big Apple, the monster business.
This is an opportunity to return to the Apple brand marketing strategy and know-how in the marketing of scarcity. A ticket that emphasizes innovation, the marketing strategy but also on industrial strategy, without which its success and the business generated would not be at the rendezvous.
Apple, the desired mark
An analysis of the agency Clear (M & Saatchi) and relayed to the blog ithink.fr, Apple would be the most desired brand in the world:
"A strong desire creates strong demand and high demand creates growth" ( Paul-Henri Brunet ).
The marketers desire already exists since the 1970s, it is to take preference, to be loved the brand, coveted and hoped for. It is certain that beyond the brand and marketing strategy, the personality of Steve Jobs has contributed. This marketing strategy to create the desire for each brand innovation is carefully maintained, as evidenced by the launch of the iPad3, relayed on the blog Presse Citron by Nicolas Lecointre:
Apple sent invitations to tonight's event, which will concern most likely the iPad 3. The conference will take place Wednesday, March 7 in San Francisco, at 10 am (19 hours for us). The text of the invitation:
"We have something you really have to see. And touch. "
Apple, innovation held incommunicado
As noted in the section of the World, "Apple plays the marketing secret." We remember the launch of the iPad on January 27, 2010: nothing had filtered or picture preview, or prototype, or visit the premises of Cupertino, no name, no characteristic; we wondered what was going to serve us a tablet that would be something between a netbook and a phone!
The teams of the brand themselves have discovered the product at the announcement by Steve Jobs because this culture of secrecy is a management strategy: each project manager working on only part of the future product and neither he nor his project team has a view of the whole. Only Steve Jobs and tightens a group of the management team knew the next innovation.
Nevertheless, the brand lets in some information to maintain the desire and create suspense, and buzz does the rest ... Like today with the iPad 3!
Apple marketing champion scarcity
According to Jean-François Fiorina, director of the ESC (Business School) in Grenoble and Professor of Marketing, the scarcity marketing strategy is to "make addicted consumers a competitive product that hits the market in there suggesting that this is not accessible to everyone. "
Other brands have also exploited this marketing strategy to boost their business, but it's Apple that controls each time all facets:
- A controlled distribution
- A gradual and limited arrival products
- A well-orchestrated advance buzz
- And, of course, as highlighted in the blog girls marketing: a real differentiation in the marketing mix, a real coherent positioning with the brand and the launch strategy.
An industrial strategy scarcity resources
Finally, read the post of Marc Geoffroy in its entirety is not in vain to understand how, beyond the innovation strategy, the culture of secrecy, marketing of scarcity and desire, Apple maintains control and an industrial strategy designed to block access of competitors to key resources of each innovation, thus creating a competitive advantage and a source of business: "the generation of" scarcity "touch screens" multitouch "to projected capacitive screens is reality. It allows Apple to prevent future competitors to promote an equivalent response to the iPad, the iPhone or iPod touch.
The launch of Apple touch products is not only to see the perspective of features or a new "fashion", but also from a strategic perspective as a way to gain market share by generating the rarity of some of the currently required components. "
industrial strategy that works since the launch of the iPod in 2001, each new creative business innovation is followed by a new innovation just in time to again block the supply of key resources. So have succeeded: the iPod in 2001, the Mini 2004, the iPod nano in 2005, the iPhone in 2007, iPad in 2010.
If the marketing strategy of a brand is to create the business by the enchantment of customers, maintaining the desire for this brand and innovation, it makes sense when it is supported by a management and industrial and competitive strategy.