The Steve Jobs Approach for Marketing to Older Adults

Whether Steve Jobs was a genius or not misses the point. What he definitely had was the courage of his convictions, which made him truly great.

Many consider Steve Jobs the greatest marketer of all time.

Whether that’s literally the case, he’s certainly in the upper echelon for me. Analyzing Jobs’ approach to marketing and communication has helped inform my efforts as a digital entrepreneur and as a teacher of content marketing.

These days, Jobs is known for innovative product development in the form of the iPhone and iPad more than the advertising campaigns he oversaw. Upon closer inspection, though, Jobs brought the same uncompromising foundation to both.

Apple spent decades as the upstart to established giants like IBM and Microsoft. Now, Apple tops the S&P 500 with a market capitalization of over two trillion dollars. Despite the current leadership under former CFO Tim Cook, no one doubts that it was Jobs who pointed the firm to the apex of multinational brands.

Whether Steve Jobs was a genius or not misses the point. What he definitely had was the courage of his convictions, which made him truly great. He instilled in Apple his personal values and was uncompromising in adhering to them.

This is important because the way Apple positioned itself and communicated with prospects and customers reveals the basis of any marketing strategy that aims at older consumers. It’s a prime example of the empowerment marketing you’ll use to effectively market to your chosen longevity market segment.

Let’s explore some of Apple’s iconic campaigns to understand how we can use a similar approach when marketing to older consumers.

Three Campaigns That Made a Dent in the Universe

As the perpetual underdog against corporate computing behemoths, Apple had to strongly differentiate itself from its competitors. Fortunately, Jobs understood that they were also appealing to a completely different kind of person, and that became the focus of the company’s marketing messages.

Let’s explore the commonalities between three of Apple’s most acclaimed and iconic advertising campaigns for inspiration. As you’ll see, Jobs wanted to empower and elevate the type of person who would most likely embrace the Macintosh personal computer, creating a cult-like brand in the process.

1984

It was Super Bowl Sunday of – you guessed it – 1984 when one of the greatest commercials ever had its one and only national airing in the United States. And if the Apple board of directors had gotten its way, it would have never aired at all.

Apple’s 1984 advertisement never showed the product. What it did was create an unnamed villain (obviously representing IBM) that took on the role of “Big Brother” from George Orwell’s novel 1984. An also unnamed heroine represented the Macintosh that would save the creative people of Earth from the tyranny of the monolithic status quo of computing.

This was the entirety of the pitch at the end:

On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you'll see why 1984 won't be like 1984.

The 1984 advertisement only ran nationally once, but that’s all it took. Like any truly effective Super Bowl ad, the buzz was more important than repeated views. In his book Electric Dreams: Computers in American Culture, author Ted Friedman said this about the impact of the commercial: 

Super Bowl viewers were overwhelmed by the startling ad. The ad garnered millions of dollars worth of free publicity, as news programs rebroadcast it that night. It was quickly hailed by many in the advertising industry as a masterwork. Advertising Age named it the 1980s Commercial of the Decade, and it continues to rank high on lists of the most influential commercials of all time [...] '1984' was never broadcast again, adding to its mystique.

This commercial might not surprise you if it debuted today. But 40 years ago? This was monumental. It didn’t talk in terms of product, features, or even benefits. It instead spoke in terms of values, heroes, and villains. And it was prospective Mac users who were the heroes, with the Macintosh acting as the means of liberation.

More importantly, 1984 put you in a position to take sides. Are you a unique, creative, non-conformist, and vibrant person who embraces the Macintosh? Or are you a dull, lifeless, conformist, corporate person who sticks with IBM?

In other words, what are your values?

Think Different

At the root of Apple's marketing differentiation was the idea that its customers are also different. And by different, the messaging clearly communicated that Apple customers are better in ways that certain people value.

This became the root of the new Apple tagline, Think Different, ostensibly an on-the-nose response to IBM’s longtime Think slogan. When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, he resumed the relationship with the Chiat\Day advertising agency that had created the 1984 commercial.

Jobs didn’t create the Think Different campaign, but he was instrumental in providing initial insights and then making it all happen:

While Steve Jobs didn’t create the advertising concepts, he does deserve an incredible amount of credit. He was fully responsible for ultimately pulling the trigger on the right ad campaign from the right agency, and he used his significant influence to secure talent and rally people like no one I've ever seen before.

The most memorable expression of the Think Different campaign was The Crazy Ones television spot. The one-minute ad featured footage of iconic 20th-century personalities, including Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King Jr., John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Muhammad Ali, Mahatma Gandhi, Amelia Earhart, and Pablo Picasso.

The message was clear: “You’re different like these iconic people are different. And that means you can change the world too with the right tools.” 

Ultimately, the campaign succeeded in producing a vital element of the cult-live devotion to the Apple brand itself: “You’re different like we’re different.”

In a remarkable example of marketing ju-jitsu, Apple took its underdog role in the computing industry and turned it into a status-elevating celebration of creative “misfits and crazy ones” everywhere. The line in the sand was drawn even deeper – are you more of a creative rebel (and therefore an Apple customer), or are you a lifeless corporate drone?

Get a Mac

As we entered a new century, Apple started off with a rare advertising misstep. The Switch campaign – featuring "real people" who had switched from Microsoft Windows to a Mac – was not very effective and was gradually phased out in 2003.

Not only did the Switch campaign deviate from the values-based approach that celebrated the type of people who used a Mac, it likely reinforced the dominance of Windows. This is what could be called the Pepsi Challenge syndrome, where sales are ultimately unaffected despite the highlighting of a preference for the underdog brand.

Apple got it right, though, with the “Get a Mac” campaign that ran from 2006 to 2009. Not only did it return to an emphasis on the type of person who uses a Mac versus a PC, the commercials literally personified the Mac and Windows PC with actor Justin Long and comedian John Hodgman, respectively.

Long portrayed the Mac as hip, creative, and cool. Hodgmen, as the PC, was nerdy, bumbling, and hapless. This personification allowed the two characters to engage in witty banter that highlighted the features and benefits of the Mac over the PC. You may also note that Long resembled a young Steve Jobs, while Hodgmen resembled Microsoft’s Bill Gates.

In a brilliant move for this type of product comparison advertisement, Long’s Mac character treated the PC with kindness and compassion rather than disdain. On the other hand, the PC would say things like, “Well, Mac, I guess you are a little better at creative stuff...even though it's completely juvenile and a waste of time." Yes, Mac users are apparently sweeter and more considerate, too.

But what the campaign did below the surface mattered more. The spots basically asked “swing” users who they were more like. Or, more importantly, they made certain people realize that “people like me buy Macs.” I personally can’t say I was specifically persuaded by these commercials, but I did buy my first Mac in 2007 because, as a creative entrepreneur, well, people like me buy Macs.

Keep in mind that Apple was in no way trying to convert hardcore PC users. It’s incredibly difficult to change minds, and in this case, it would have been a disaster. Instead, “swing” users were people who likely bought a PC because that’s what they used at work but were simply not familiar enough with the Macintosh line until they were made to realize that they were “Mac people.”

Did it work? Absolutely:

Shortly after the first few commercials were launched, Mac sales had already increased by 12%. By the end of  2006, Apple sales increased by 39%, selling a record-breaking number of 1.6 million Macs by the end of the year. Apple’s sales increased tremendously throughout the entire four-year campaign. During the last quarter of the campaign, Apple had sold more than 2.3 million Macs. 

The Get a Mac campaign hit people where they truly live. Not with features and benefits but at the level of values and the status we associate with being seen as possessing those values. And the coveted brand identity that Apple carefully cultivated was hitting a peak just as the iPhone was released in 2007 and the iPad in 2010.

The Power of Values-Based Marketing

Steve Jobs was a great marketer because he had the courage to take a different marketing angle that connected with people at the level of shared core values. His genius was in understanding that this was the only approach that would work for his underdog computer company.

Technically, both a Windows machine and a Mac are PCs, and any computer is inherently a creative tool. Apple was different because one of its core values is remarkable design, which was a stark departure from the beige-box PC. Apple told people who also valued design, creativity, and non-conformity that they are special, like Apple is special.

People buy things based on who they are and what they aspire to be. Values are core beliefs, and Apple made a certain type of person believe in something about themselves. As artist Hugh Macleod put it years ago:

The market for something to believe in is infinite.

Of course, not everyone believes the same things or shares the same values, which means some people find their own version of status in the flexibility of the PC versus the locked-down Mac. That’s okay because you’ll never appeal to everyone. What Apple did was steal market share by appealing to persuadable people in a way that mattered to them beyond computing specs.

I’ve practiced values-based marketing my entire entrepreneurial career and have been teaching some form of it since 2011. While there’s ultimately more to it, values provide a strong foundation that allows for connection and engagement with your chosen audience that goes beyond simple topical interest.

As the longevity economy kicks in over the next several years, it’s older adults who are the underdogs. They are currently ignored, misunderstood, and even reviled. Values-based empowerment marketing will bring massive success to brands and entrepreneurs who take the lead.

The values-first approach is gaining in popularity in general. Author David Allison is staking his go-forward career on values-based marketing with his book The Death of Demographics: Valuegraphic Marketing for a Values-Driven World. His argument is right there in the title – demographics aren’t that useful for marketing, and valuegraphics (his term) are the smarter way forward. I can’t disagree with his premise, but I’m not all that comfortable with his approach.

First of all, he positions things as if values-based marketing is a brand new thing, despite the nearly 40-year history of Apple’s advertising alone that I just gave you. Secondly, he pretends that there isn’t already a well-established marketing discipline that takes values into account.

That’s our cue to talk about psychographics. The origin of psychographics can be traced back to research done in the 1930s, but it was in the late 1960s that marketers and advertisers extensively developed the discipline to arrive at better insights about consumers that demographics could provide.

Psychographics, Qu'est-ce Que C'est?

If the average person has even heard of psychographics, it’s thanks to the 2016 Presidential election in the United States. That’s when Cambridge Analytica allegedly used very specific psychographic targeting on Facebook in key battleground states to tip the election in favor of Donald Trump.

Much like Apple targeted swing users of personal computers, Cambridge went after swing voters. An appeal to foundational values was at the heart of both campaigns, along with other psychographic elements that helped prompt specific behavior.

As you may have guessed, psychographics focus on the psychological motivations for consumer behavior. Given that any attempt to persuade someone to do anything takes place at the psychological level, you can see why this would be more useful than demographics, which tell you nothing about how people think, feel, and view the world.

Psychographics generally focus on values, attitudes, interests, personality, opinions, and lifestyles. The popular VALS psychographic framework focuses primarily on values, attitudes, and lifestyles.

All David Allison had to do to offer an intellectually honest critique of psychographics was simply state that most marketers ignore values because they lack the courage to craft messages based on them. Instead, what most brand marketers call “psychographics” is using purchase behavior targeting correlated with lifestyle to a fault, which brings them right back to demographic criteria like income, age, zip code, education level, and so on.

Plus, while interest and values are at the foundation, there’s (as usual) more to it. We’ll explore that further in an upcoming issue of Longevity Gains as we set the stage for you to create your own empowerment marketing strategies aimed at older adults.