Apple News, Analysis and Podcasts

Apple, Inc. the darling of the consumer industry, adored the world over, yet hated by others. But it isn't the consumer that's fallen out of love with Apple. Just look at Nielsen's latest iPad is number one survey if you have any doubts. Apple's enemies live in the corporate space. Large tech and service-based companies that once scoffed at Apple being nothing more than niche player are lining up in droves to bash Apple in the public square.

With success come enemies — and for Apple list grows long:

Microsoft: Watching Apple slowly eat away at their market share, Microsoft unveiled their PC Shopper campaign. The ads did nothing to slow Apple's constant drumbeat of growing Mac market share, but it was a clear and public attempt to hurt Apple's brand and sales. The ads stressed price and specifications. while attempting to make the choice in OS irrelevant. That's right, Microsoft makes software, and it choose to make that portion of a computer buying decision irrelevant. The ad campaign wasn't successful, but it was the first highly visible consumer-level assault leveled against Apple in well over a decade.

T-Mobile: Their latest advertising effort is to fool the Sheeple populous with their own rendition of I'm a Mac ads. While T-Mobile executes the ads well, their attempt to trick viewers into thinking there is no way to video call on an iPhone other than using Facetime is, well, desperate. Clearly, T-Mobile has no iPhone deal coming any time soon, and Apple's iPhone is doing great damage to their business. Oh where or where art though Catherine Zeta-Jones when we need her most?

Amazon: Kindle Books. Buy Once, Read Everywhere, campaign. A clever new ad delivering a once upon a time story, where a woman was reading a Kindle book on her iPhone, but then switched to an Android phone, and didn't need to purchase here Kindle library all over again. I had no idea people actually read books on 3" - 4" screens, and that books are now magically called Kindle books.

Sony: A youth-oriented ad campaign dubbed "Step Your Game Up", or "Marcus, Don't Play That!" What should Marcus not be playing? An iPod touch of course. Why you would want access to over 30,000 games of all flavors vs dated Play Station Personal games that, relatively speaking, cost a fortune, seems more like someone should be telling Markus don't be stupid, but who am I to judge... Sony's lost on many fronts to Apple this past decade, and guessing who these ads are targeted towards, this campaign Smells Like Teen Spir - errrrrt! - Desperation.

Sprint: Finally staving off the steady bleed of customers, they are running their own brand of T-Mobile ads, communicating their network and phones provide video chat without the need for wifi-only solutions like iPhone.

Beyond bashing Microsoft, Apple's marketing communication and ad campaigns focus on competing against itself, the competition was irrelevant in the messaging, but will that messaging continue from Apple? The time has come where half the tech ads on TV are for some product or service claiming to be far superior to Apple's, and while it's a sure sign of Apple success, and one companies ads cannot topple Apple, will the cumulative hammering on Apple start to do damage sooner than later?

Apple's enemies list is large and growing larger by the day. Apple has shown they understand how to climb the ladder and get to the top, but being number one is a different road than climbing the rungs to get there. The question of today is does Apple has the know-how to stay number one and stretch the lead?

1 Comment

1. steffen Jobs ~ December 1, 2010 15:17
   android, samsung, htc, motorola etc. will run circles around apple with their faster refresh cycles. eventually apple will begin to lag behind and get passed just as with windows and pc's.

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