Ten Apple Traits That Every Small Company Should Emulate - Page 3
7. Have a “Cool Factor.” One of the most defining characteristics of Apple is that their products are simply cool. The devices are cool-looking, they play or display cool content (like music and movies and apps and games,) and through a combination of factors (like smart partners – see #3 above – and elegant design; see #8 below,) the company has managed to basically de-position all or most competitors as stodgy, or clunky, or un-hip, or simply, (despite a strategic partnership) as “Windows.”
8. Commitment to Design. One of the key players at Apple is Jonathan Ive, Senior VP of Industrial Design. His influence on clean, elegant, sometimes teeny-weeny product design at Apple has given the entire company a new complexion. While other computing companies are still trying to figure out the “liquid” look for their laptops, Apple presses forward on countless innovations, including the all-in-one desktop computer, the “flywheel” on iPods, the “anti-flip” telephone device, the “it feels so easy in my hand” iPad, the famous “earbuds,” and on and on. A recent article in The New York Times outlined several of the 313 patents Apple has filed for, and one of them is for the iPhone packaging. (Seriously, the packaging is patented.) Even if your company isn’t in the devices business, have a designer look at your business from top to bottom and see if you can’t match your company DNA to an aesthetic and interactive sensibility that elevates the experience of doing business with you.
9. Simple, Effective, and Consistent Advertising. Throughout Apple’s history, advertising has played a central role to how the company promotes its products and disseminates product feature information. And with its (almost unheard of) longstanding relationship with TBWA/Chiat Day, there has been a driving force of simple, features-based, single-concept advertising. From the moment Apple introduced itself to the world with the Ridley Scott-directed
“1984,” through the “Think Different” campaign of the mid 1990’s to the “Hello, I’m a Mac” spots of recent years, Apple and their agency have always kept it simple and pithy. Any company can learn a lot about how to promote just on the basis of Apple’s advertising track record. Not just what they do, but that they do so much in so many channels (print, radio, tv, outdoor, direct, institutional, one-to-one, etc.) with such consistency.
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