Brand Relevance: Making Competitors Irrelevant - always yours

FINDING NEW CONCEPTS 163
Where did the ideas for the iPod, iTunes, the iPhone, and
the iPad originate? Not from customers. They came rather from
market insights on the part of Jobs and colleagues, who famously
believe that customers cannot help with concepts that are not
already on the market. These market insights were based on a
confl uence of factors: a belief that customers would respond to
a suite of applications, a knowledge of evolving relevant technology,
the fact that current products on the market were hopelessly
defi cient, and confi dence in their ability to improve and
add features. Timing was critical. The technology and market
needed to be in place, which meant that close tracking of both
was needed.
The role of Apple ’ s CEO, both as a visionary and as a force
reaching for greatness, was pivotal. However, another lesson
is that no fi rm, even one with Steve Jobs, will bat a thousand
over time and across products. Jobs, extraordinary at creating
uniquely designed, easy - to - use products for individuals, had
less success selling to companies that were not creative service
companies. Apple has long been on the outside looking in with
respect to the business market for computers. Jobs ’ s effort to create
a computer for comp anies during his Apple exile, NEXT,
never did make it, although NEXT ’ s software became a ticket
back to Apple. So even Jobs had a mix of disappointments
sprinkled in with his stream of successes.
■ ■ ■
The preceding fi ve chapters have presented over twenty cases
in which brands have developed offerings with the potential
to create new categories or subcategories. Each case provides
a different perspective on both how it was done and why
it was successful or unsuccessful. One overall theme is that
there are complex market dynamics, formidable creation and
implementation challenges, and considerable uncertainty surrounding
efforts to transform markets.