On the 30th Anniversary of the introduction of Macintosh, I thought it might be helpful to examine some of the reasons for Mac’s success and how close it came to failure. I was not at Apple, but I worked with them for over a decade and many of the details are not often discussed.
I could just as well titled this, “How can my Company be More Like Apple”, but many have a visceral negative reaction toward anything that would indicated they want to be anything like Apple.
The other reason for looking at Macintosh is because it is really the poster child for a number of key high technology marketing concepts, precepts and game-changing segmentation. Which ones? … Crossing the Chasm, The Whole Product, PR is more Important than Advertising and the creation of new market segments (like Desktop Publishing and 3D CAD/CAM) … and a couple you might not have heard about: he use of small sample qualitative research to significantly reduce the time and money it would take for large scale research and importantly, the key reason why Apple products have become so successful.
Where Did these Concepts Come From?
It turns out that all of these were discovered, created and refined by the partners at one firm … Regis McKenna, Inc. which for over two decades, from the 70s to the 90s, was the premier high technology marketing and consulting firm in the world. I worked with the Partners there for almost a decade while at Gartner Group and became one as well.
What was important is that all of their learnings were based on real-world experiences, not just theory … both failures and successes. Often an idea would come from experiences and then investigation conducted into any possible theories that might underpin the hypothesis.
In fact when training material was created and compiled for the professional staff, it was called a “cookbook”, not a manual. The word was chosen because recipes are generally adapted to accommodate tastes. They are more like guidance rather than exacting. Companies are different, their market position is different, their products are different, their employees and culture are different. Applying cookie-cutter programs is not a recipe for success.
I’ll cover all of the topics mentioned in the second paragraph in later posts because I want to focus on the last one … the key reason why Apple products have been so successful since the introduction of Macintosh
The Key Reason for Success
While at Gartner, I was in charge of a large scale (50,000 respondent) annual primary research study of technology use. It was the first research to separate business, home and work-at-home use of technology. It was also the first to identify the replacement personal computer market and the finding that users did not ride the cost curve down, but rather, surfed the technology curve, spending the same amount as before for significantly increased capability. The survey continues to this day and is the longest running longitudinal study of its kind.
As I looked at the1995 data in mid-1986, I wanted to see if there were meaningful differences between PC use and Apple/Mac use.
My interest was piqued by my real life work experience. Just before joint Gartner, I worked in Marketing at one of the largest memory producers in the world. At that time (1985) all sales collateral was produced my Marketing Communications on special purpose workstations with long lead times (about a month). In a short time the DRAM market began a pricing free fall from $26 a part in February 2005 to $2 by November
I looked at the data by each of the use cases noted above and found statistically significant differences based on the results. The sample size of Mac users was still small, so I waited until the following year to dig deeper and run some different cross tabs on the data.
The Findings were Dramatic
After sifting, sorting and tabbing, several key findings came to light:
Those who used a PC at work had a high preference for Macintosh if they could make the purchase
Across all uses (work, home and work at home) the number of hours per week spent using a Mac was multiples of the personal computer
The same was true of the number of applications used on a Mac versus a PC
Working with Apple, we did some in depth follow-up research to better understand what was going on. Only later did I learn that some of my future Partners at Regis McKenna were also involved. I presented the findings as, “People use Macs more because it is easy for them to do what they want without learning the nuts and bolts of the operating system, printer drivers, etc.”
The team at Regis and Apple boiled it down to a simple phrase, “Ease of use promotes use”.
That’s it. That’s the key to much of Apple’s success. I really don’t know if Steve Jobs ever articulated his vision that way, but it was at the heart of his fanatic attention to detail about Macs, the iPod, iTunes, the iTunes Store, the iPhone, the iPad, AirPort Extreme, Time Capsule and many other Apple products. He would typically say, “They just work”.
Apple’s PR, advertising and promotion has continued the general theme to this day. Critically, the products and services driver on that promise, unlike the hype surrounding many other market participant products.
What Should You Do?
You are not Apple, nor is my company. However the take aways can be applied to everything from automobiles, to Wintel PCs, to home automation, to high-end audio systems, to pure services. Don’t try to “boil the ocean”. Apple didn’t. Start somewhere where the problems you uncover seem most likely to have a high payback. Be relentless in making whatever you have chosen as your issue/problem as easy for your customer as possible. Then do it again and after that again one more time. After fixing that problem move on to the next one and keep going.
That’s how Apple built their ecosystem. One piece at a time. You cannot make it from “whole cloth”.
As you do this you will come up against those who do not want to change because it is easy for them as it stands. They are not your customer. It’s called work for a reason!
For years Dell had higher customer satisfaction ratings than Compaq even though their actual reliability was significantly lower than Compaq. Why? When customers called in with issues, Dell helped them resolve their problems directly, issued RMAs, etc. Compaq had total reliance on their distribution chain and would tell the customer to go back to the reseller to solve the problem. Quick and easy versus long and hard. Even though the customer issue might be due to poor quality on the part of Dell, the customer was satisfied because their complaint was addressed quickly.
There typically will be negative financial implications in the solutions you recommend … more time; perhaps increased returns due to a more customer friendly return / warranty policy and perhaps more outside costs. Be sensitive to these concerns, but explain why they will be good for the company.
To restate a phrase from an Apple ad, “Think Different”!
