Why Tim Cook’s Interview with Chinese College Student He is a Marketing Failure
Despite 210 million views in 12 hours
In February, Apple CEO Tim Cook was interviewed a Chinese college student nicknamed Student He. As one of the most popular tech influencers in China, Student He creates videos on a China-based streaming platform called Bilibili （an equivalent of Youtube）and now has almost 7 million followers on the site.
I have watched his videos before, and highly appreciate his creativity and unique way of storytelling. After the interview with Cook went live, the hashtag “He Tongxue interviewed Apple CEO” quickly became a trending search on social media platform Weibo （an equivalent of Twitter）, accumulating 210 million views in half a day.
Despite Student He’s inspiring questions, despite tons of positive reviews from Chinese press, is it really a good marketing endeavour for Apple?
I don’t think so, expecially in the long run.
Why?
Because Apple is a leading cult brand.
And cult brands don’t BOW to consumers in the following aspects.
Consumers Needs
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying Apple overlooks consumer needs. On the contrary, it has a huge budget on market research (according to my lecturer in the market research module, smile).
But do you remember what Steve Jobs said?
“People don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”
Let’s see what Tim Cook said in this interview:
“I love to go to stores to talk to customers to see what’s on their minds.”
It’s a good saying from the PR perspective. Consumers love to be treated as kings. But it’s a bad one for relationship marketing as a cult brand (not to mention it’s not a scientific way of market research, so the insights he could get would probably be biased and of little value).
A cult brand refers to a product or service that has a relatively small but loyal customer base that verges on fanaticism. Except for Apple, examples are Harley Davidson, IKEA, zappos, and argubly Lululemon.
Cult brand don’t cater to needs; they create needs.
Cult brand don’t subject to consumers; they lead consumers.
In the ELM model, we have both transformational (peripheral) and informational (central) routes when it comes to persuasion in marketing communication. Most electronic products naturally fall into the informational route, in which comparison beween different features matter a great deal due to high involvement in the decision making. What Apple does is to take the transformational route, a road less travelled from competitors in the early days.
The personal brand of Steve Jobs has become an indispensable part of Apples brand value (which is concerning right now because Apple needs to decide whether it wants to continue benefiting from this or discard it to build new equity under new leadership). Apple fans still worship Steve Jobs as a legend, a god. And a god don’t need to hang out with ordinary people on earth, like, in an interview.
If Simon Sinek gives this thought-provoking TED talk again, will he say today’s Apple is still starting with the WHY?
Differentiation
“We try really hard to design our products to everyone.”
I believe Tim Cook was honest and sincere when he said this, but that’s exactly the problem.
Apple products used to be designed only for people who “think” they are different from everyone. Such a smart way of targeting.
Tim Cook mentioned how classes at Apple Retail, namely, Today at Apple, train customers to use Apple products. Such classes are perfect example of how Apple actually lead customers. It designs new products; consumers purchase them without even knowing how to use them. “We should spend time learning to use the cool decive.” says consumers.
If you spend some time in an Apple Retail store during the launch season, you will see specialists educate consumers about all the amazing features of the latest products, holding a microphone so their throat won’t be hurt so bad. But do comsumers make the purchase decision because they are informed from the introduction? I would argue that most consumers had made that decision long before they walk into the store. The speech from specialists just enables them make the purchase more happily.
That is the power of a cult brand.
Theoretically, Apple is supposed to emphasize on uniqueness in case it falls into a declining leader in the brand strength and stature matrix.
I would argue that Apple is still in a leadership position, which means very hign in uniqueness and high in three other dimensions.
But keep in mind, leader could fall into the trap of declining leaders, which is relatively low on uniqueness and high in other three dimensions.
Media press say that the interview with Student He has saved Apple millions of marketing budget. Even if it’s true, I would say all the budget is used for improving esteem and knowledge, two dimensions that Apple has always exceed, and two dimensions which can prompt a leadership brand to become a declining leader if placed too much importance on.
This point is also best illustrated in some ads of Apple.
Break the norm, challenge the status quo, dare to be different…… That’s what we see from this ads; that’s what aligns perfectly with Apple’s brand equity; that’s what was regarded as the best marketing strategy ever.
Although presumably Apple aims to sell to everyone (just my thought), it has achieved this by saying it’s not designed for everyone.
Student He’s channel is growing dramatically after this interview.
How about Apple?
