If Apple's marketing relies so heavily on it being a niche, exclusive club rather than the market leader/product of the common man, how do you explain the iPod?
I think they just applied the same marketing there and nobody ever challenged them on it after they achieved ubiquity. That's why I think they're vulnerable to their own tactics there.
Maybe so. The Zune marketing is an interesting case study, since it's in a lot of ways very un-Microsoft. They've tried their best to hit the hipsters with the campaign: launch parties at Stussy stores, commercials featuring trippy video sequences and a song from the Shins, customized engravings from various artists, and a general "too-cool-for-school" vibe. And it's not worked very much at all. Maybe because it's too late?
Maybe the fact that the "trippy video sequences" are pointless and lame, and the fact that the "song from the Shins" is awful, has something to do with it.
I think they just tried aping Apple's marketing (aesthetically) while totally not understanding why it worked. They don't have Microsoft Stores, so they borrowed Stussy. Jet was taken, so they went with the Shins.
They're not building their own cool club, they're just trying to get into Apple's.
