Accomplished Promotion

When you look at Apple from purely a corporate performance standpoint all you can say is wow, but we all know that such incredible performance never lasts forever – or can it. Recently, our think tank took a look at the company, and had a rather lengthy discussion on the topic. Perhaps, I might share some of my thoughts with you on this as well.

There was a very decent quickie type article in the Wall Street Journal, accompanied by a nice graph of Apple’s success. The chart is clearly going skyward, and somewhat hyperbolic. Every business CEOs dream, and it is all thanks to good business management, executive leadership, marketing execution, and branding. The article was entitled; “On Apple and Its (Enviable) Problems,” by Yukari Iwatani Kane (featured in the “Heard it on the Street section”) on October 18, 2010.

Okay so, that was some interesting commentary and my hopes are that you will go read that article and then come back to this article so you can better follow along on my comments for Apple’s future strategy. You see, trying to keep control of such rocket-ship growth is going to be tough, but there are avenues, venues, and strategies which can allow Apple to continue their loyal following, and grow it organically in the market place.

Consider if you will that there are many PC and Microsoft based loyalists too, and despite what you might think for every religiously loyal Apple follower there are five who absolutely will not touch the product – can Apple win them over? Perhaps, over time, and those who are hard core against Apple could become their best word-of-mouth referrals in the future – or not, depends on how they play it. Likewise there are huge numbers of Blackberry followers too, who seem to be able to be coaxed into trying the Apple products such as iPhone and iPad.

Even as a non-Apple person myself, I happened into an Apple Retail store, which is Apple’s strategy in taking it to the people, will that work? Well, it might for Apple if they only put them into the right demographic, but it didn’t work so well for Microsoft or Gateway, of course, neither really had a cult-like brand loyalist following like Apple has now.

Apple so far has capitalized on its “road-show” roll-outs of new products, and capturing the product cycle curves of each, at the prescribed inflection points, but now Apple must pick up the pace to continue. Is it possible? Or will even their loyal followers get fatigue, and god-forbid they make a big mistake or a product does not do what it says and they lose all credibility. They’ve had a few recent crisis management fires to put out recently – for instance the signal strength of the border-perimeter antenna of one of their latest products.

Still, if Apple is to break into the main-stream and really sell tons of products while keeping price points high for that currently “stellar brand name” of theirs – they are going to need a consumer financing arm, and that means taking some profits and retained earnings off the table, and taking some risks with “Apple Financing Programs” and Apple Loyalty Card Programs, but in this uncertain economy that could be risky too. Please consider all this.

By: Lance Winslow

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