Apple Confidential: Core Values and Marketing

One of the most fascinating talks I’ve seen on what marketing and branding is. Marketing starts with first understanding your brand, which involves understanding the basics: who you are and what you believe in. Once you are very clear about your brand’s fundamental values, marketing is about communicating that brand effectively using images and words. 

When working on a design project, I tend to take a long time trying to understand the brand. If I don’t have a clear idea of their core values, it becomes challenging to channel their beliefs and ideas successfully through a design. Although the research process can be slow, it is worth it. One of the main ways to differentiate one company from another is by their personality. This is crucial since it ends up affecting everything else after that, from the type of customers you get to the type of ideas you generate. 

Although this talk was given in 1997, it is still relevant today. Technology and markets are constantly changing. The only thing that stays the same is a company’s core values. This is probably the most important lesson I learned from this video.

Interesting side note: Jobs spent ~75% of the time talking about advertising, which parallels Apple’s marketing strategy (spend more time on the idea behind your ads and less time showing off your tech specs).