Influx Insights Tag Feed: apple

apple scales up fast

Influx Insights — 2008-07-03T22:43:16Z

Historically, we are used to thinking of Apple as a niche player, it still is in many ways, but its new businesses appear to be scaling pretty fast.

Movies

According to Variety, Apple's move into the movie business appears to be working quite well.

"Studio execs said that iTunes movie sales and rentals -- which the computer company said tops 50,000 daily -- dominate the small but closely watched digital movie biz. Apple is now on track to sell or rent 18.25 million movies a year, or triple the number of last year, before it inked deals with all major studios for new-release rentals and sales."

Phones

Apple placed an order with Samsung for 50 million NAND flash chips. It's basically taken over Samsung's production. The order is so big, Samsung is asking its other customers to wait. A fascinating development when you consider that Samsung also wants to play in the phone wars, but here it is helping a foe with a critical component.

Posted by Ed Cotton

barclays bank gets a redesign inspired by apple and the science museum

Influx Insights — 2008-06-30T01:49:57Z

Interesting article in the London Times about Barclays and its approach to branch re-design. It picks out Apple stores, The Science Museum and obviously, Tesco, as being inspirations for the project.

"At the beginning of last year, Ms Oppenheimer poached Helen Dodd, a retail design expert, from Tesco.

Ms Dodd, who has spent 20 years working out how to attract customers to shops and keep them there, trooped 250 Barclays customers and staff through the Northampton warehouse to test the new layout and technology.

Nothing was sacred, not even the good old British queue with the black tape barriers. The new Manchester branch is experimenting with a ying-yang-shaped queue, broken up by waist-height pillars housing computer games. The branch's space-age information desk is pure Apple store, while, according to Ms Dodd: “We're trialling a lot of different queueing methodologies - people do PhDs on this stuff.”

The childrens' play area is inspired by the Science Museum. There is no glass separating tellers from customers, to stop people from raising their voices, something that Ms Dodd believes makes banking more stressful.

Curves are used to make customers feel “warmer”, while the glass frontage will make women more inclined to enter. “At the moment, they don't feel welcomed into branches,” Ms Dodd said. Concierges, dressed in uniforms by the designer Jeff Banks, will issue customers with tickets telling them how long they must wait and even if they would be served more quickly if they went to another branch.

Getting the right doormat was key - customers like dry feet, so Ms Dodd found a mat that dried wet soles within four steps. The Manchester branch operates to the same timetable as other retailers, with late night and weekend opening."

Posted by Ed Cotton

gates is beating jobs

Influx Insights — 2008-05-21T02:36:01Z

Given the cult of cool around Apple's leader Steve Jobs, it might have been safe to presume that he is leading the search war with bitter rival Bill Gates of Microsoft.

According to Google that doesn't appear to be the case and despite Apple continuing to grab the headlines, Microsoft's Gates is a more popular search term. Despite Bill's semi-retirement he still has iconic status.

Perhaps, Microsoft needs to remember this!

Posted by Ed Cotton

retail experience: nokia vs. apple

Influx Insights — 2008-04-10T00:35:02Z

John Dodds over at Make Marketing History has a nice post about the differences between Nokia and Apple in their retail experience.

He compares two stores in Oxford St, London and concludes;

The Nokia store is a gallery.
The Apple store is alive.
The Nokia store staff are tech sellers.
The Apple store staff are tech users.
The Nokia store is a place where you browse.
The Apple store is a place where you use.
The Nokia store is about surface.
The Apple store is about corporate DNA

In essence, it's clear that Apple has a brand and Nokia doesn't. This was fine for Nokia when they had the mobile world to themselves, but it looks like they need some serious brand work to prevent Apple from taking some major share in this space.

Posted by Ed Cotton

apple cult- the movie

Influx Insights — 2008-01-26T05:02:52Z

There's a new documentary all about the cult that surrounds the Apple brand.

Posted by Ed Cotton

thinking about the electronics we consume

Influx Insights — 2008-01-13T18:02:40Z

The other day, Piers at PSFK posted an angry editorial about CES.

"Another year, another electronics and gadgets conference that is out of whack with modern concerns around sustainability and the planet. The C.E.S. is an arrogant refusal to admit to the problems the electronics industry has created in terms of material waste, poisonous polution, energy waste and over-consumption."

He is not alone, today's New York Times Magazine has a great piece by Jon Mooallem called "The Afterlife of Cellphones".

The piece explores the world of cellphone recycling and tries to understand why we need to constantly upgrade our phones. Reading the article forces you to think again about waste.

Jon concludes;

"Even the most idealistic visions of how e-waste should be recycled and reused take for granted that consumers and businesses will never reconsider why we are buying and discarding so many of those products, so quickly, in the first place. If the rush of castoffs isn’t likely to stop, we need to clear a proper path for it, considering all the inevitable compromises and costs along the way and delivering those products to as consequenceless a place as possible."

Most companies seem pre-occupied with creating "lust' for their objects that ensures continued market share and admiration.

While on the surface, this doesn't appear to be a responsible attitude, it reflects the realities of the marketplace.

Consumer electronics are the new fashion, so much so, that they are taking share from the fashion business and it's one of the reasons the US sports shoe business is so soft right now.

The presentation below is from the design team at Nokia and it does a fantastic job at explaining how the company creates lust objects. It's all insights and needs driven, but it does nothing to bring sustainability into the mix.

| View | Upload your own

This is a battle about hearts, minds and marketing.

With Macworld coming up this week, Apple and Steve Jobs are masters in the creation and marketing of lust objects, they do it so well.

Governments aren't going to force the issue, pressure groups like Greenpeace have limited voice, change is going to need to come from the market.

If companies want sustainability to be considered, they are going to need to do as good a job as Apple in making it sexy.

On the positive side, it appears to be easier than ever for new brands to enter the consumer electronics space, just look at flat panel TVs for that.

Could here will be a new electronics brand with real sustainability built into its DNA that emerges in the next couple of years?

Could, somewhat ironically, that brand come from China?

Posted by Ed Cotton

brand hacking- ikea and beyond

Influx Insights — 2007-11-08T11:56:11Z

One of the more colorful aspects of the 2.0 world of blogs and unbridled consumer creativity is finding the occasion when a random individual picks on a brand, creates a space to play with it and stretches it above and beyond the original attentions of its owners.

A great example of this is Ikeahacker; a blog devoted to “playing” with Ikea’s flat pack furniture, in ways that don’t appear on the official list of instructions.

It’s the furniture equivalent of voiding your car warranty by installing nitro tanks. While many of this efforts is playful and come out of an endearing relationship with the brand, others might be of the “Fight Club” variety, all cynical and full of spite.

This type of attack was unleashed recently with this film that apparently exposes the contradictory motivations of consumer goods giant Unilever.

While Madison Avenue maybe cooling on the consumer-created trend, with the fabulous exception of the newish Apple’s iPod Touch spot (see below-original upload first- agency-consumer co-produced version-second), people are still going to do this stuff, regardless of whether you pay them, entice them and brands are just going to have to live with the consequences. The genie is out of the bottle, live with it.

Posted by Ed Cotton

how big was the iphone launch?

Influx Insights — 2007-11-06T13:42:33Z

Although it's hard to gauge the real sales numbers for the iPhone, people are talking about 1.2-1.4 million, I thought it would be interestng to look at the "noise" the launch generated and compare it to other cultural events.

The tool I have used is Google Trends which looks at data for search volumes. This isn't the same as column inches or minutes of news time, but it's still an interesting barometer.

It's clear that the iPhone may have generated more "noise" than any other brand in recent years. It's peak is comprable with that of the Superbowl (the most watched event in the US) and nearly double that of the Oscars.

It's pretty remarkable that a single product can create that level of interest and hardly surprising that Time Magazine continued to fuel the noise by naming it Invention of the Year.

Obviously, all this noise is only good if it can be translated into sales.

As an interesting sidenote, I also plotted the trajectory of Facebook, which appears to be slowly creeping up to the iPhone frenzy noise level, no wonder Google is scared.

Posted by Ed Cotton

are stores just bigger ads?

Influx Insights — 2007-10-14T16:42:18Z

Borders Books and Music, one of the largest bookstore chains in the country is trying to find new sources of revenue by bringing new experiences to its stores.

These experiences include: mixing and burning CDs, creating photo books, building family trees, all at computer stations, the store is also retailing some electronic iPod related products.

They are testing the idea in 12 stores around the country. On paper it seems to make strategic sense, in reality, having visited one of the 12 stores, it's harder to understand and its a good example of the problem with the retail experience these days.

There's an old fashioned notion in the minds of consumers that stores are working hard on their behalf to create a nice "edited' experience, of course, we know that this experience is fast becoming advertising based, with stores charging slotting fees and pay to play models for brands.

You can see this in the new Borders experience; it feels like a physical version of a catalog where companies have paid to be there. Part of the problem is that the chain has taken a lot of its inspiration from Apple and the emerging iPod economy, but it can't provide an Apple-like in-store environment to pull the vision off.

Clearly, the senior management at Borders have a challenge on their hands, they can't offer the breadth and selection of online players, or even some of the big box electronics retailers, not can they provide an Apple experience, but they also appear to want to generate additional revenue from suppliers.

I don't just want to pick on Borders, because retail is rapidly shifting from an edited to an advertised experience. The consumer is oblivious to what's going on behind the scenes, which is fine, until it starts to impact their experience and in the long-term, that could have serious implications for retailers.

Posted by Ed Cotton

apple hails al gore, but is there more to come?

Influx Insights — 2007-10-13T23:32:55Z

Apple's website is now celebratating the Nobel Prize success of its board member Al Gore.

Could this be the prelude to something more?

Apple products with less packaging and greater energy efficiency?

or

A line-up of Gore edition solar powered iPod Shuffles?

Tip from Ben@Noisy Decent Graphics

Posted by Ed Cotton

nokia plays offense

Influx Insights — 2007-08-31T13:27:00Z

Nokia dominates the global handset market- in Q2 2007 the company sold 100 million phones and holds over 35% of the global market.

However, it’s been something of a sleeping giant, it hasn’t had the coolest products or image that Apple possesses, but could that be about to change?

In the last week or so, Nokia has gone on the offensive and launched:

1.Ovi- a new web portal for mobile social networking

2. An iPhone clone set for launch early in 2008.

With the combination of aggressive copycat tactics- (clone phones and retail stores) and a new cooler image, Nokia could easily extend its category dominance.

All it needs is better advertising.

Posted by Ed Cotton

influx insights for your iphone

Influx Insights — 2007-07-20T14:55:16Z

Obviously, Influx has been tracking Apple's sales trends like everyone else, but with an estimated 700,000 iPhones sold in the first weekend, we felt we had to respond.

We know there's a big correlation between Influx Insights readership and iPhone ownership.

We've responded by making Influx Insights, iPhone ready. So those of you who splashed out on one of the decade's fanciest gadgets will be able to enjoy all the Influx goodness on your brand new toy.

No need for special urls, just type http://www.influxinsights.com into your iPhone and it will format automatically.

Don't ask me how it's done, but a huge thank you to our tech wizards, Joseph Piro and Josh Brewer for making it happen.

Posted by Ed Cotton

why can't anthroplogists lead companies to an iphone?

Influx Insights — 2007-07-12T05:29:18Z

Nokia and Microsoft now have armies of anthroplogists scouring the globe for insight into how people communicate and use technology.

"As an ethnographer for Microsoft, Donna Flynn uses her training as a Ph.D. in archeology to analyze how ordinary folks from London to Beijing make daily use of their cellphones.

She feeds results of her field studies to two dozen designers, engineers and strategists toiling in an unusual research lab on the Microsoft campus. Awkwardly dubbed the Mobile and Embedded Devices Experience design center, or MEDX, it is where Microsoft plots strategies to sell souped-up cellphones that act a lot like PCs."

USA Today

Despite all the collective wisdom and intelligence of these armies,they haven't inspired their designers to create anything as captivating as Apple's iPhone.

Is it because they are looking at what is, rather than imagining what could be?

Posted by Ed Cotton

hijacking apple's primetime

Influx Insights — 2007-06-30T21:48:13Z

The millions of dollars of free airtime and cult like fans contributed to a perfect opportunity for causes and individuals to hijack Apple's primetime.

Some examples:

Hats off to Johnny and the crew at Anomaly- they lined up in NYC for phones to auction for charity

Robert Scoble proved himself to be the geek’s CNN

Technology analysts left their cubes for the first time in months to try and get attention by capturing and sharing the news

Steve Wozniak reminded people there was once another Steve at Apple

The Today show considered the story important enough for an advertorial, wanted to be noticed for it, but sadly they couldn’t get that right.

Posted by Ed Cotton

where are the iphone crowds?

Influx Insights — 2007-06-29T03:06:20Z

"So far, the throngs of iPhone-demanding humanity beating on the glass shells of Apple Stores across the globe haven't materialized -- at least not here in Apple's backyard. At this point, the line consists of about one woman, four gentlemen, and three clowns."

Via Engadget

Posted by Ed Cotton

apple builds its itunes brand

Influx Insights — 2007-07-15T20:41:48Z

There’s no doubting the functional power of iTunes software, but it plays second fiddle to the more powerful and dominant iPod.

Now it looks as if Apple would like to beef up the iTunes brand a little more.

No 9 on Influx's prediction list for 2007 is happening

In the UK, Apple worked with the ICA (Institute of Contemporary Art) to create the iTunes Music Festival. The festival takes place during the month of July at the ICA where bands and artists will play to an intimate crowd of 350 people. Acts lined up for this include; Ash, Athlete, Groove Armada, Imogen Heap.

Not surprisingly, there’s some nice integration with the iTunes brand, as all the concerts will be recorded and be available for sale on the site.

You can’t buy tickets, you can only win them in a prize draw, so Apple gets to capture lots of nice data.

Posted by Ed Cotton

brand experience: apple's personal trainers

Influx Insights — 2007-05-12T20:30:48Z

A couple of days ago, Influx discussed the potential for brands and retailers to add experiences to their offering.

In the piece we incorrectly classified Apple as a pure brand retailer with no brand experience elements. We are wrong most of the stores have classes and group training. Which adds an educational experience element to retail. Apple also has its One 2 One Personal Training program which allows people to get personal training in a range of skills from photography to web development.

For just $99 a year, it's a great deal and a clever way for Apple to enhance its relationship with its customers.