The coolness factor: Why do we love Apple’s marketing?
It's the "cool" factor that sells Apple products
I use a Dell laptop. It’s because all the applications I need in my work run better on Windows. But my wife has a MacBook. And her notebook is white. Not that shinny – that’s because it’s not one of the latest generation laptops from Apple -, but it looks good and that apple on the back of the lid looks great. It’s absolutely beautiful.
I used to have an iPod Touch. First, I didn’t have the money to buy an iPhone, and second, it was too time consuming to import all my contacts from my old Sony Ericsson. But in the end, it’s quite the same thing. Except the part where you can’t take pictures and you can’t call your friends. What was so cool about the iPod Touch? The fact that you could “touch” the applications, you could browse the web with your own finger and not by using a device (I’m speaking about a mouse or a touchpad).
The psychological needs
The huge success of Apple is based on the fact that everyone needs to feel cool. And that’s why Mac is cooler that a PC. Basically, the positioning of Apple products is all about “we are young and cool, we can rule the world, it’s that simple“. A youngster will always want to be cooler than his fellows, while a guy passed 40 will always want to feel younger.
It’s a simple fact every psychologist knows. If you’re passed 40, your therapist will tell you that your semi-depression is called “middle-age crisis”. No one wants to get old because everyone assimilates “old” with “death”. And that’s why Apple is young, it keeps you away from “death”.
It’s called “KISS”
One if the coolest principles of usability is called “KISS”:
Keep it simple, stupid!
It’s what the guys from Apple managed too understand a long time ago. And when I say “long time ago”, I mean the years when the programmers worked on Mac OS. The operation system is simple to use, the user interface is really friendly and using colors instead of the Windows plain blue kept during the ages (even in the present, if you were to ask me) was one of the coolness factors.
It’s rounded, you know…
In the recent years, web2.0 was assimilated with rounded corners. Because most of the users – and developers, actually – had no idea what web2.0 really means (maybe not in the United States, where the dotcom crash said: “It’s users we should focus on, not us“), the rounded corners concept was addopted by everyone.
Except Microsoft, which will launch Windows 7 with the same stiff corners and hopes it’s going to be a blast. Instead of that, Apple understood rounded means friendly. Until recently, Microsoft was perceived as the stiff company, the evil giant that wants to rule the world. And the perception is not far from reality. When your operating system is used by 90% of the population, you kinda rule.
Apple is one step forward for the simple reason they understand what users want. It’s how they create their marketing strategies. Give people complicated stuff easy to manage and they’ll love you. Mac OS doesn’t tell you to install drivers, the drivers are already there. Stick the USB card in a Mac and the OS won’t tell you to restart your computer. That’s what Windows XP does, for example: “USB driver installed. Please restart you computer. Would you like to restart now or later?“. and Windows has drivers for so many USB sticks…
Web presence
Apple.com uses lots of white space, large paddings and good font sizes. Enter one of Microsoft’s websites and you’ll see the same tiny fonts and the same large quantity of info. Hell, it’s too much! I wan’t to read seven paragraphs about one thing, not 25.000 paragraphs about everything!
Last year, at Cannes Lions festival, Jean-Marie Dru, TBWA\ Worldwide‘s CEO, had this presentation where he said something really cool: Big is better, big companies need great ideas. I guess he only discovered this recently, otherwise Apple knows that for years. The difference is that Apple has this great idea of implementing lots of other small ideas. It’s like Orange’s slogan: “Together we can do more“. Together, those small ideas make a great strategy.
And the award goes to…
Steve Jobs is one of Apple’s target best example: he’s a guy passed 40, but his spirit is young. It’s what everyone wants, to feel young. Apple is young. No matter the prices, everyone will make a pact with the devil just to feel young again. That’s why Apple has one of the best worldwide marketing strategies. “Young and cool“. That’s what everyone should go for: different approaches for the same concept. You just have to think… forward. Like Apple does.