Apple vs. Samsung – How can Apple stay the apple of our eye?

A jury’s decision to award Apple £1bn in damages as a result of patent infringements by Samsung has led to much soul-searching across the pond. For many, the decision was naked protectionism, a blow against innovation and competition. Others felt Samsung’s punishment was not nearly severe enough. There is one certainty highlighted by these legal wranglings - Apple has wider issues around brand, image and communications that it will need to address shortly.

Fifteen years ago Steve Jobs returned to his spiritual home. His meticulous reconstruction of Apple is well documented, built as much on an instinctive understanding of brand, design and marketing as it was savvy business decisions.

As a challenger brand Apple was able to portray itself as edgy, young, exciting and importantly, aesthetic. Messaging started with the ‘Think Different’ campaign and moved onto adverts that included a PC and Mac compare and contrast, with a PC represented by a suited businessman and a Mac by a jeans wearing bohemian. Communications, and the Apple brand, was built around a sense of Mac owners somehow being different from their peers, more original, more free-thinking.

But Apple is now the biggest company in US history, not some uppity newcomer. Instead of playing the ‘new-kid-on-the-block’ card, they’ve shifted direction, with communications now portraying Apple as a lifestyle choice. Far from being a stamp of individualism, Apple is now a stamp of affluence, the technological embodiment of keeping ahead of the Joneses.

This change in direction has so far been managed relatively smoothly, but the Samsung case hints at choppy waters ahead. Can Apple continue to be the must-have brand, the epitome of urban cool, if it’s seen as a playground bully? A protracted legal case is surely far closer in nature to the suited businessman than the care-free urbanista Apple sought to portray itself as.

Apple customers are notoriously loyal, but how Apple communicates with the next generation of young adults is vital for its continuing dominance. It needs a communications strategy that acknowledges Apple’s popularity without compromising its image as a maverick. To do so, it needs to get back to what it does best – innovation. What could have been a ‘cooler’ response to Samsung patent infringements than to simply shrug, smile and continue to think outside of the box?

John Hood Consultant john@linstockcommunications.com