Apple’s 3-Step Marketing Strategy From 1977

Published 1 February 2024 by

Martin Hamilton

It’s still relevant today.

Apple just had it’s 40th anniversary meetup at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. Attending were the original programmers and marketers that launched the Apple Macintosh. The ad that ran during Super Bowl XVIII that January day in 1984 is iconic, and will always be remembered as one of the greatest ads in history.

If you time lapse back to 1977, the world was quite different. For one, there was no public internet, no online Google search, no websites, no social media, and no teenagers jumping around and dancing on TikTok.

Only the military used some of this type technology, which was top secret in 1977, and I was starting middle school.

One thing that was just beginning is Apple. Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs had launched the Apple Computer and were developing the Apple II. This was when an investor named Mike Markkula joined Steve and Steve with a $250,000 investment.

Mike Markkula soon wrote a marketing letter: The Apple Marketing Philosophy.

In 2018, Apple became the first company worth $1 trillion. Today, Apple is worth over $2,87 trillion. Apple doesn’t share exactly how much they spend on marketing, but it’s surely in the billions.

The three-point strategy letter was great almost 50 years ago, and it’s still great today. I believe that Apple is still sticking to these 3 points better than most companies and it shows with their consumer following. They didn’t just say it, they showed it.

1: Empathy

We will truly understand their needs better than any other company.

Key takeaway: Put ten times more effort into getting to know your customers instead of telling them about yourself.

2: Focus

In order to do a good job of those things we decide to do we must eliminate all other unimportant opportunities.

Key takeaway: What can you eliminate from your daily schedule? I’m willing to bet there’s at least a few hours spent on unimportant opportunities every single day.

3: Impute

People do judge a book by its cover. We may have the best product, the highest quality, the most useful software, etc. yet if they are presented in a slipshod manner, they will be perceived as slipshod; if we present them in a creative, professional manner, we will impute the desired qualities.

Key takeaway: People don’t buy the best products. People buy the best communicated products.

You should always strive to have a superior product but if you couple it with bad marketing you’ll get bad sales.

Sadly the inverse can also be true. You can have a bad product yet combine it with good marketing and turn out good sales. To be more accurate that would be good initial sales untill the word got out from unhappy customers.

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Summary

The world’s first trillion dollar company created a superior foundation when an investor named Mike Markkula wrote some simple yet critical business principles in a one-page paper entitled “The Apple Marketing Philosophy” that stressed three points.

The first was empathy, an intimate connection with the feelings of the customer: “We will truly understand their needs better than any other company.”

The second was focus: “In order to do a good job of those things that we decide to do, we must eliminate all of the unimportant opportunities.”

The third and equally important principle, awkwardly named, was impute. It emphasized that people form an opinion about a company or product based on the signals that it conveys. “People DO judge a book by its cover,” he wrote. “We may have the best product, the highest quality, the most useful software etc.; if we present them in a slipshod manner, they will be perceived as slipshod; if we present them in a creative, professional manner, we will impute the desired qualities.