Apple marketing: just who are they targeting?

I thought the ads comparing the amount of time to get onto the internet with the mac (imac?) was great. Convince people that they are paying a little more for a lot of ease of use, that is all you have to do. Like a brain on windows (which I know I stole from someone) kind of marketing scheme. Everything is so damn easy, tout that everywhere.

Dell sells on price; Microsoft on ubiquity. What should Apple be selling on? 'Show and Tell' seems to be working well through the iPod and the many of us recommenders willing to explain the virtues of OS X. The design of the iBook and iMac speaks for itself - people either like it or not. I was surprised that a Samsung P28 laptop, with a comparable spec to a 14 inch iBook, was only $50 cheaper for a much worse experience. But I cannot see how marketing would convey this successfully in favour of Apple, do you?

If Apple had NOT sold iPods to the Windows crowd, this Windows user (1990-2004) may not have switched to a Mac. I started with an iPod. I now have 3 Macintosh computers in less than 1 year. I no longer have a Windows PC at home that is on the Internet and I personally no longer use Windows at home *at all*. Also, my Macs outnumber my Windows computers at home. The two we have left (Win98 and WinXP) are for the games we had already purchased prior to moving to the Mac. But, like I said, those are for my kids and I don't use them and they are not, nor ever will be again attached to the Internet.

Why sell iPods to Windows users? If it didn't happen, iPods would only be for us Mac users exclusively. But the sad truth is that there is a much bigger market in the Windows crowd, and that's where the money is.

To continue ongnoi's comment: As a marketing person, I'd like to remind everyone that the constant challenge with marketing budgets is that you have to show an ROI (return on investment). Advertising (and, again, this is only PART of marketing) to the other 80% of the world--especially via broadcast (TV)--may not show the results that they need to do this kind of advertising. I'm not fighting against everyone; just reminding you that it's really easy to sit back and do arm-chair-marketing ("EVERYone's a marketer" i always say). But what/where you advertise is only PART of marketing. **I** don't have all the information to critique their marketing, do you?

Apple has horrible marketing, despite what the tech fans are claiming in this comments thread. Tiger has parental controls that rival AOL's, yet they don't promote them. They have a beautiful OS that they never promote outside of the free press they get when they release a new version (which nobody but tech savy people read). OS X has tremendous security, which they never promote (filevault, secure empty trash, the entire OS is virus-free, etc). I could go on like this for hours without stopping. Apple doesn't promote anything except things Windows users can buy without switching to OS X.

I hear a lot of praise for Apple's marketing campaign -- so much praise that by reading just the comments, you would think Apple had a majority share in the PC market. Which is far from being the case. I think Apple should broaden their advertising swath -- spend a little less on iPods, and make a series of commercials / advertisements in the same vein but that sell computers rather than music players. Get people to transfer their good feelings about the iPod toward their PC buying. Of course, no one really knows what Apple's corporate strategy is -- do they want to own the PC market? Continue as a niche provider? Remember that advertising and marketing has to back up the overall strategy. If their strategy isn't to sell an iMac to everyone and their monther, but rather to focus on a niche, their campaigns might be quite effective. It's hard to evaluate without knowing the whole picture.

Here in the UK there is nothing on TV except the iPod adverts. Maybe they rely on the halo effect for home computer users. Most people who see that I use a Mac for work always comment on how nice a computer it is but they all choke when they hear the price. The general public here want a cheap as chips PC they just don't understand you get what you pay for. If you do get someone to use it they can be converted. So far my boss has started moving over to Mac, and a work collegue has also brought himself an eMac. Just from trying my iBook.

I too would like to see more advertising for Apple computers, and it's funny because I was just thinking about this this morning. I envision a day when the Apple computer is as iconic as the iPod is today. Many would say this day will never happen, but who knows. I think there should be commercials that say "Hey, you love your iPod, right? Did you know we make computers too? They're just as awesome. Here's why..." You know they could make a killer commercial or magazine ad that would put the PC world to shame. They must have their reasons for not doing this yet.

Well, if you look at this in a business perspective, Apple does a great job in marketing the Macs. Fundamentally, the most 2 effective strategies in marketing are publicity and personal reference, Apple sure nails them both. Advertising(usually misunderstood as being the main and only marketing tool which it is not at all) is however just a small part of marketing, so judging how Apple targets its objectives through the mean of marketing solely based on advertising is simply unfair.