SBP 074: The Barber's Brief - June 6, 2024

Welcome back to another episode of The Barber’s Brief. A segment where we cover news that caught our eye, a marketing moment where we highlight a case study, and our ad of the week.

We hope you enjoy the show!

Our Hosts:

Marc Binkley - ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcbinkley/

Vassilis Douros - ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/vassilisdouros/⁠

Follow our updates here: ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/company/sleeping-barber/⁠⁠

In The News

Ad Age: American Airlines Fired Exec After a Marketing Change Aliented Corporate Clients

Link: https://adage.com/article/marketing-news-strategy/american-airlines-fired-chief-commercial-officer-vasu-raja-after-marketing-strategy-change/2562716

Paul Worthington Newsletter - Off Kilter - Oops, AI did it again Looking at some of the failings of AI

Link: https://www.invencion.com/off-kilter

Fast Company - How Amazon created a winning streaming formula: shows based on airport books for dads

Link: https://www.fastcompany.com/91134058/amazon-prime-video-streaming-airport-books-for-dads-james-patterson-cross

P&G’s Chief Brand Officer Mark Pritchard talking about inclusivity

Link: https://wwd.com/beauty-industry-news/beauty-features/marc-pritchard-on-serving-all-and-each-to-drive-market-growth-1236389828/

Marketing Moment - The Power of Positioning // Apple - The Turnaround

Background

• Back in 1997 - Apple was in big trouble
• They had just lost $800m
• Low market penetration and market capitalization of $2bn
• Michael Dell - when asked how he planned to fix the organization, he was planning to shut it down and give the money back to shareholders.
• Steve Jobs returned to re-focus Apple, and there was a lot of anticipation
• In August of the same year, Jobs addressed the future of the company at MacWorld 1997.

Brand Positioning and Strategy

Before getting to the Think Different campaign, they defined the new positioning of Apple, where they identified three core tenets.

• Simplicity
• Creativity
• Humanity

These three tenants became core to Apple and were a major part of the brief that went into the brief to TBWA\Chiat\Day, which famously led to the iconic “think different” campaign.

Revival and Growth

Why was this so powerful? It comes back to the three tenants:

• It was a simple message
• It was about creativity
• And celebrated at its core, humanity

Due to its simplicity, it also worked well across media channels (print, TV, OOH etc.)

The Think Different campaign bought Apple time and got them out of trouble.

Due to this newfound mental availability and the constant product innovation (see iPod) by 2003, Apple had an evaluation of $8bn.

However, because they wanted to grow globally as well, they re-brief Chiat/Day for a global iPod campaign was when “silhouettes” was born, which leaned again against the three core branding positioning tenants.

By 2006, Apple had turned a corner. Now worth over $70bn, it returned to its core product, computing. Going after Microsoft who had dominated for decades the space. The campaign, “Get a Mac” was born. Why did this campaign work?

• Apple created an “enemy”
• highlighted Apple’s simplicity and creativity
• Positioned against Microsoft’s complexity

What Lessons can we date from this example?

• Simple positioning always beats complex positioning - It is important to be clear, and consistent with your brand positioning,
• Differentiation is possible through positioning because it can also help with price volatility helping you to drive profits

Links:

Mark Ritson on the power of Apple's brand positioning (youtube.com)

Ad of the Week - Heinz Ketchup

Fighting counterfeiters of people refilling Heinz ketchup bottles with different brands of ketchup

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-TkRINrr4A&t=92s

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