Cometh the Hour, Cometh the Man?

This month saw the annual Macworld conference take place in San Francisco. For Apple, this is a major event, used to launch spectacular new products to an always-eager world. Apple’s customers almost seem to beg the company to sell them something new...

Notably, Apple’s charismatic CEO Steve Jobs was absent, attracting much media comment. Jobs - a co-founder of Apple along with Steve Wozniak – has not always enjoyed an easy relationship with the company. Nevertheless, he is seen as a shrewd entrepreneur who enjoys a positive profile – Jobs is Apple to many, and his infectious explanations of the latest company gems at Macworld are a key part of the Apple brand.

Jobs is a cancer survivor, and his failure to attend the event has provoked some to ask who his successor could be, and what qualities that individual should possess. Jobs has sought to distil the media furore by stating he is suffering from a hormone imbalance, from which he will recover. I hope so.

This event underscores why the role of the CEO is so important. How they build a corporate image in a way that reflects positively on a company’s products has been recognised as a way of ‘building brand awareness and knowledge in a cost-effective manner to reach specific audiences’ (Kotler & Keller 2008, p. 317). Jobs’ role at Macworld has been to promote the brand of Apple as an innovative producer of desirable products, and how successful he has been!

The power of CEOs to influence the public perception of their organisations, and thereby contribute to corporate health, is undeniable. Here are some other notable examples:

Richard Branson, who seems to enjoy a similar profile to Jobs. Virgin does possess a very strong brand identity, and Branson’s publicity stunts are well known.

Gerald Ratner, whose gaffe in the early 1990s when he described his company’s products as ‘crap’ at a key speech, was disastrous. (Now apparently known as ‘doing a Ratner’).

Bill Gates, whose massively successful company Microsoft has adopted business tactics that have been brought in to question on a number of occasions. Gates’ profile has been variable at best, although he has now started to enjoy greater recognition for his philanthropic work. How this has influenced the public’s perception of Microsoft remains to be seen, although Gates has appeared in recent adverts (‘I’m a PC’) designed to challenge Apple’s ‘I’m a Mac’ campaign. Would this have been appropriate 10 years ago?

My questions are these: if the power of mass advertising is weakening, should companies be more reliant on the personality of their CEOs? Will charismatic leadership combined with a positive media image be of more value in future, and what are the risks involved? 

Remember the AppleTV?

(AppleTV: Multipurpose - Sushi platter, bet Jobs and co. didn't see this one coming)

Photo source: Fortune

When we talk about Apple, most of us will instantly recognize products such as iPhone, MacBook Air and of course, the iPod. But how many of you remember that Apple released a much hyped product in early 2007 called AppleTV.

Dubbed the “DVD Killer”, the AppleTV is supposed to usher in a new generation of entertainment and be the centerpiece to our living room. AppleTV promised to stream videos and multimedia contents from PCs through our wireless network and providing playback capabilities on HDTVs.

The strategy was simple – link all the killer apps from iPod to iTunes and create a happy medium to play the music, video, and pictures through the big-screen. The result however, was as bad as the Apple III.

Several factors why AppleTV failed to take off.

First, the device requires a HDMI (Hi-Def Multimedia Interface) connection but very few contents on iTunes produces HD quality videos. The result was a very bad combination of low resolution videos playing on a HD capability TV. This is almost like requiring a HDTV to play VHS tapes, not a happy marriage.

Second, AppleTV has streaming capabilities through our PCs and it also has a separate connection to the internet. However, users are not able to directly order contents via AppleTV and download the contents directly to the device. Instead, a PC is required to be the middleman doing a very non-value added and time consuming task.

Third, yes, it was dubbed as the “DVD killer” and so AppleTV chose to come without a DVD drive. Sure, from a differentiation perspective, it works, but how many of us are ready to shell out $300 to pay for another device that we don’t really need. I can spend $300 on a quality home theater entertainment system or the AppleTV and the decision won’t be the latter.

Fourth, AppleTV has a HD, 40 GB worth to be exact. You would think that it would be awesome to replace that old TiVo of yours and use the AppleTV to record television shows. WRONG. The AppleTV does not have any capabilities to record anything.

Finally, the AppleTV fails to compete with newer laptops who are HDMI capable. Why need another device when I can connect my laptop directly to the TV and play real HD contents without ever having to stream through the network.

In summary, AppleTV does have some nice features such as the signature design from Jobs and co, but it lacks the most fundamental features that even the most novice users would want. There will be lessons learned from AppleTV – so much for the DVD killer.

Amazon vs. iTunes.

Amazon.com is offering its associates 20% commission for MP3 download! At the same time, Farhad Manjoo has a great post discussing how iTunes has reduced its DRM-free price to 99 cents.

The Motley Fool thinks that all this will not affect Apple.

Apple vs. Mac Ad Compilation