If there was anything less surprising than the much-rumoured revelation that Apple planned to release not one, but two new iPhone models this September, it was the reaction the news afforded in certain quarters. While few were naysaying the iPhone 5s, it was the announcement of the colourful, plastic iPhone 5c that raised the ire of Apple doom predictors.
Why Apple would want to release such a phone is obvious. By coming up with a lower cost iPhone than its premium model, Apple can not only tap into emerging markets with a phone that is cheaper to make and sell, but also appeal to the younger demographic (the audience previously catered for with a device like the iPod Touch) who may have less money to spend on a phone, but also be won over by the 5s’ ultra-colourful design.
With this being said, it is also easy to understand the trepidation. Although rival manufacturers are starting to catch up (and in some ways even overtake) Apple when it comes to smartphones, the company still has an enviable reputation to uphold.
Apple has always modeled itself less of a tech company, than it has as a luxury consumer brand. For every 1984 Superbowl spot or Think Different campaign -- both of which cast Apple as the people’s computer company -- there have been multiple ads presenting the company’s products as the computational equivalent of a high-end car, or movie product placements which place “owning an iMac” on the same pedestal as “winning your dream girl” or “being a movie star.”
LIFE VALIDATION PRODUCTS
If there’s a bit of an elitist edge to Apple’s brand, that is by no means an accident. When I interviewed former Apple marketing director Michael Mace for my book The Apple Revolution, he referred to what he called the “snob factor”.
“By using Apple products, you were telling yourself and the world that you were a superior form of human being,” he noted.
“You knew better than anyone else, and you were part of a special elite above everybody else. You could kind of smirk at anybody else, so there was definitely a level of self-satisfaction involved. We were selling life validation products to the smartest, most creative segments of the population. It’s a gorgeous example of how you can match market segment with company culture, product design and advertising -- and how freakishly powerful that is when you get all of those factors right.”
This is where the criticism came in. To the cottage industry of Apple watchers, making a cheaper, plastic version of one of their products doesn’t mean the same thing for Apple as it would for Samsung (which already sells differently priced phones). It’s more along the lines of Louis Vuitton or Aston Martin doing it.
“Cadillac once was the largest-selling luxury vehicle in the American market,” marketing consultant Al Ries recently told Firstpost. “Then it tried to broaden its market by introducing lower-priced vehicles. Today, Cadillac is not considered in the same category as Lexus, Mercedes-Benz and BMW. These three brands each outsell Cadillac by a wide margin. It won’t happen overnight. But long-term ... the same thing will happen to the iPhone. By introducing cheaper iPhones, it will lose its position at the high end. And conversely, it won’t sell very many inexpensive phones because of competition from Chinese and Taiwanese companies.”
A similar story was echoed by journalist Josh Constine writing for TechCrunch -- only this time using the example of British fashion house Burberry (and getting a few facts wrong in the process.)
“Apple could learn a lot from the fall of Burberry,” Constine opined. “The once-exclusive fashion brand became associated with trashy youth by greedily licensing out its signature tan chequered pattern for use on baseball caps and other cheap clothes. Suddenly, the rich clientele it had catered to for a century wanted nothing to do with Burberry ... Obviously there are a lot of differences between Burberry and Apple ... But by selling cheaper (than the 5s), loudly-colored phones, there’s a chance it could negatively impact the perception of the status of the iPhone brand to more sophisticated luxury consumers.”
WHAT WOULD STEVE JOBS DO?
If you take the view that numbers don’t lie, Apple’s doubters were worried about nothing with their fears concerning the iPhone 5c. Yesterday’s press release from Apple revealed that the company had sold an astonishing 9 million iPhones over the launch weekend of its new iPhone 5c and iPhone 5s; in the process smashing the previous 5 million record for first weekend iPhone sales.
More important than the initial numbers were the reviews. Far from the rumoured flimsy product that was going to show how standards had fallen at Apple, the 5c turned out to be a surprisingly high quality product -- with unibody casing, featuring a polycarbonate back, that feels both resilient and sturdy.
Apple is not the first company to use polycarbonate to make smartphone cases. Nokia did something similar with its Lumia 925 and 1020 models, while HTC did the same with its One X, and marketplace rival Samsung on some of its Galaxy models. Where Apple differs from a number of its competitors is in its choice to lacquer coat the polycarbonate back -- thereby making it less susceptible to scratches in the same way that Apple opted to use Gorilla Glass on the back of its original iPhone.
This, of course, raises the question of whether Apple has missed a trick by making its product too high-end for certain consumers? Knowing the fickleness of certain corners of the tech world, perhaps this will be the next accusation leveled at the company.
In terms of whether Steve Jobs would have done the same were he still running Apple, arguing either way is a moot point -- but I see no reason why he wouldn’t. This is, after all, the same Steve Jobs who -- upon returning to Apple in 1997 -- immediately set about working on a cheaper Macintosh that took the product line away from the “high right” quadrant product (leading the market in both performance and price) it had occupied for the first half of the 1990s, in favour of a pricing point that was more affordable to the average consumer.
Oh yes, and it was colourful and plastic too.
by rgoodwin via Featured Articles
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