Getting bored with the “A” word

If I see another marketing article using Apple as an example of a great brand, I’m probably going to scream.

Which means I’m going to scream at least 4 times before dinner.

What I concede about Apple

1. Apple has built an amazing brand and has beautiful products. And if you also aspire to build beautiful, market-leading products, you can likely learn some stuff from Apple.
2. For those of us who don’t sell products, maybe we can learn a few things from the purely strategic stuff Apple pulled off, like their funny marketing campaigns.

What I really think

1. Apple, like Nike, or Starbucks, or Amazon, or any other overly-quoted global brand, are all pretty much irrelevant to SMEs and NFPs like us.
2. I believe the reason they’re quoted so much is not really because of their amazingness, but because marketers and copywriters are getting lazy.

Oh you want to see an example of a nice brand? Check out Apple, they’re super nice. Steve Jobs was on stage a lot, here are some videos of him saying smart things.

That’s nice, but our brands aren’t in every pocket and street corner of the globe… got something a bit more relevant?

Apple’s slogans, Steve Jobs’ quips, and their ad campaigns are quoted SO OFTEN in marketing articles and business books, that now when I see or hear the mention of it, I just stop reading. It’s a big signal to me that the writer has put no effort into finding something unique in the world to help us learn from.

There’s almost nothing about Apple that hasn’t been said a million times. Pay attention to this if you read marketing articles or business books. I bet if you read 10 in a week, 5 will mention Apple.

I don’t have a good reply to this. I just know my frustration with the Apple example is at boiling point (which is probably just frustration with reading lazy how-to articles) and I’m ready to hear something new.

Almost every business on the planet is smaller than Apple, so we need something more relevant – which is what I hope you’ll get in some small way from this newsletter.