Apple's Secret Of Success - Traditional Marketing Vs. Cult Marketing

Text Sample: Chapter 5, Cult Brands always create customer communities: Communities create social capital that enhances belonging to the brand. There has to be social glue that binds common goals, values and celebrates and mourns the same events. As the congregation's members invest their time and resources in the community, they create social capital that further enhances the sense of belonging. Levine, a lecturer at University of Illinois believes that Mac users have a common way of thinking and of doing things. They share a certain mind-set. 'We say we're Mac users, and that means we have similar values'. Consumers establish networks to support their favorite brand. In the 90's, most zealous Mac fans went as volunteers to electronic stores, fix the Macs on display and help sell Macs. Therefore the customer community contributed to Apple's survival. Cult Brands are inclusive: Normally, ad specialists assume that great brands are built upon product exclusivity and targeted marketing in order to gain high margins. In contrast, Cult Brands sell real products to real customers instead of renaming ordinary products with the intention to make them exclusive. Unless the brand is a luxury good company, inclusiveness and not exclusiveness is the primary mission of the brand. Cult Brands have customers with a wide range of ages and incomes. There are universal qualities that all human beings share. A rebellious teenager and an aging baby boomer, while separated in decades by age, possibly seek for similar feeling like temporary escapism and unrestricted fun. For example, a great Cult Brand like Harley Davidson maybe would not have millions of followers and real fans, if they were only targeting, for instance, single males with a medium household income of $30.000 to $35.000 a year. Harley Davidson attracts customers of every level of income with different personalities and education. Apple doesn't separate customers by income or age. On the contrary, they try to attract every sort of customer by providing a widespread product line for every sort of use. The products can be personalised in some ways through customizing them in the internet store. Customers can choose from different storage capacity and processor performance to different sizes of screens. Cult Brands promote personal freedom and draw power from their enemies: Cult Brands have understood that consumers are actively looking for the opportunity to buy feelings of freedom in their everyday lives. Apple provides its customers the freedom to be different and to step out from the monotony life. This brand stresses their attention on areas which are unattended by other brands, like bringing design into the computer sector. Furthermore with their slogans 'the computer for the rest of us' or 'think different' Apple created a rebellion, freedom and cool image. The rebellion image is a fundamental characteristic of Cult Brands. They have a sense of competitive spirit or a specific attitude against ideals in order to sell the customers the freedom they like. The Mac owner in 1984 and today feels a certain rebellion against authority such as Microsoft, in owning the products. Apple especially provokes Microsoft by their 'Get-a-Mac' advertisements.