A Tale of Two Rivals
There’s no love lost between Microsoft and Apple Computer. Since the mid-1970s Bill Gates and Steve Jobs have been pretty much obsessed with each other.
In the 1980s that fixation turned into corporate one-upmanship. More often than not Microsoft dominated, as evidenced by the Windows operating system’s 95% market share. Yet Apple, no question, is the better marketer.
The iPhone epitomizes Jobs’ marketing genius.
In January he gave a sneak preview of what was to come, periodically leaking details to the media over the following months. It culminated in the June 29 launch of the iPhone, which had anxious purchasers waiting on lines.
Experiential marketing figures prominently in the campaign. The iPhone print ads encourage readers to try it, as well as everything else Apple sells at its retail stores.
How did Apple get consumers to believe they actually needed a $600 cell phone? The company played on consumers’ desire to simplify their lives: the Internet, wireless, camera and iPod. Oh yeah, it’s a phone. So what if the device can only store as much as a Nano, not a full-blown iPod? That goes with the territory of any first-generation product. It typically costs more and gives you less.
Apple’s current television commercials play on the perception that Mac people are cool and hip, while PCs are for the nerdy and square. The actors have more than a passing resemblance to Jobs and Gates.
Look how Apple’s iPod transformed the digital music business. MP3 players were already out there, but Apple’s was easy to use. Its sleek design adorned everything from the silhouette ad campaign to the device’s compact packaging.
How did Microsoft respond four years later? The Zune. Enough said.
There’s a dramatic moment that nails the rivalry in the 1996 PBS documentary “Triumph of the Nerds,” which traces the evolution of the personal computer in becoming a must-have appliance.
Opines Jobs: “The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste, they have absolutely no taste, and what that means is — I don’t mean that in a small way — I mean that in a big way…”
In the late 1990s Apple sued Microsoft, claiming everything from intellectual property theft to antitrust violations. Then the two companies buried the legal hatchet — at a Macworld conference, no less. Jobs looked up at a big screen of Gates peering down on him. Bill as Big Brother: one of the great iconic photographs of the last century.
It seems to me that when Gates settled the Apple lawsuit, he should’ve turned over Microsoft’s marketing to Cupertino.
I’d like to welcome Richard Tedesco to Promo’s editorial team. Richard is an experienced media reporter who’s held staff positions at such publications as Broadcasting & Cable and Electronic Media. Sports marketing and financialservices are two of his new beats.
