Ondrej Holzman The 15th edition of the Marketing Management conference took place on Wednesday in Prague's Žofín Palace, and the main speaker this time was seasoned marketer Dave Trott, who promotes the so-called "predator thinking" in his field. In an exclusive interview for Jablíčkář, he revealed that his hero is Steve Jobs and that without him, the technological world will be stomping on the ground...
That "predator thinking" is not just some invention. Dave Trott, the current chairman of The Gate London agency, actually wrote a book originally titled Predatory Thinking: A Masterclass in Out-Thinking the Competition, which he partially presented during his speech at Marketing Management. But even before that, we interviewed the winners of many awards in the field of advertising and marketing, because the world of advertising and the world of Apple are strongly interconnected. After all, Dave Trott confirmed this at the very beginning of our interview, in which, among other things, he offered his view on the future of the apple company, which is said to be in for no easy times after the departure of its co-founder.
When it comes to ads from tech companies, which type of marketing is more familiar to you? Apple with its emotional storytelling, or the sharper confrontational style of, say, Samsung?
It always depends on the situation, there is no universal formula. When Apple did the "I'm a Mac and I'm a PC" campaign, it was great. Microsoft then did the stupidest thing when they launched the "I'm a PC" campaign in response. After all, Microsoft was four times bigger than Apple, it shouldn't have responded to it at all. In addition, they target completely different markets, Microsoft users do not want to be the rebels, they are ordinary people who want to create their spreadsheets in peace. It was a stupid move by Microsoft that did nothing to help the brand or sales. But Bill Gates simply couldn't resist and answered Steve Jobs. Microsoft spent millions of dollars on this, but it was useless.
With Samsung, it is a little different. Its products are much cheaper and it is the price that plays a huge role in the Asian markets. But it's different in Europe and North America, people here prefer to buy a MacBook, because of the brand and because they like its system. In Asia, however, they don't want to spend a single extra crown, that's why they don't buy an iPhone, that's why they don't buy an iPad, and that's why Samsung has to solve a different marketing problem here than it solves in Europe and North America.
On the other hand, the manufacturers themselves spend huge sums on marketing campaigns. In the case of globally known companies such as Coca-Cola, Nike or Apple, these expenses may seem somewhat unnecessary. Especially if the ad is not even closely related to the products being offered.
That matters. There is no formula that can be followed universally. If you look at Apple, they hired the head of Pepsi (John Sculley in 1983 - editor's note), but it didn't work because it wasn't the same thing. Buying a bottle of sugary drink is not the same as buying a computer. There is no universal formula for how to do this. Apple later created some great advertising campaigns. My favorite is the "I'm a Mac and I'm a PC" campaign. They were funny ads with a fat man and a skinny man that ran for years in the United States, pointing out a lot of reasons why one product was better than another.
[do action=”quote”]In order to succeed, you have to be different.[/do]
If I take it from the very other side, i.e. with small start-up companies, I find it almost impossible to develop into a colossus like Apple or Google have become. In today's information-saturated age, is a good idea and modest marketing enough?
In order to succeed, you have to do exactly what Steve Jobs did. You have to be different. If you're not different, don't even start. Neither money nor big investors will ensure your success. If you're not different, we don't need you. But if you have something really different, be it advertising, marketing, innovation or service, you can build on it. But why waste time on something that's already here?
Nobody needs another Coca-Cola, but if you come up with a drink that has a different flavor, people will want to try it. It's the same as when you create an ad. All ads look the same and you have to come up with something new to get attention. The same applies to startups.
Think of it this way - why are you buying a Mac? If I offered you a computer that looked exactly the same and did the same things as an Apple computer, but it was a brand you didn't know, would you buy it? There must be a reason why you would like to switch.
What if it is a big brand that has fallen into gradual decline? Such a situation can theoretically arise, Apple reached such a critical point in the 90s.
If you look at the return of Steve Jobs, he did one thing. Apple offered too many products, and Jobs radically cut them down to just four. But he didn't have any new ones, so he ordered that the awareness of the brand should be increased through the promotion of the existing products. He practically had to build the entire brand from scratch. He created the "Crazy Ones" campaign about crazy and rebellious people, showing creative people that this is the right computer for them.
Could social networks help in a similar situation today? Younger generations today communicate this way very often, but Apple, for example, is very closed in this regard. Should he start talking "socially" too?
If you have a good idea how to grab social networks, then why not, but there is no point in just placing ads on them. What happened when social media came along? Everyone said that now we have a new kind of media and the old ads are dying. Pepsi bet on it. In its revival project four or five years ago, it took all the money from traditional media such as television and newspapers and pumped it into new media. After 18 months, Pepsi lost $350 million in North America alone and fell from second to third place in the sugary drinks rankings. So they immediately sent the money back to traditional media.
The point is that Zuckerberg managed to completely hypnotize the whole world. Social media is great, but it's still media, not an advertising and marketing solution. If you look at this media now, it's full of old-fashioned, distracting ads because businesses are failing to attract customers. However, no one wants to be interrupted by a company while chatting with friends on Facebook. I don't want to communicate with Coca-Cola, but with friends, so as soon as you see a brand actively engaged on social networks, on Twitter or Facebook, you delete it without reading its message. No one has yet figured out how to use social media properly.
The closest to a good solution on Twitter so far have been TV stations and newspapers that inform users of what they are currently broadcasting or writing about. That's useful, but it's different on Facebook. I mainly want to have fun there with my friends and I don't want to be disturbed by anyone else. It's the same as if a salesperson arrives at your party and starts offering some products, no one wants that. In short, it is a good medium, but you have to know how to use it.
[do action=”quote”]No one has the vision that Steve Jobs had.[/do]
Let's go back to Steve Jobs. How long do you think Apple can live off his vision? And can his successors really replace him?
I think Apple is in big trouble now without Steve Jobs. They have no one to innovate. They just started changing everything. No one has the vision that Steve Jobs had, he saw years ahead, further than everyone else. There is no one else like him right now, not just at Apple. This means that the whole sector is not going to move and innovate now, because all the progress of the last few years was driven by Steve Jobs. When he did something, others immediately copied it. Steve made the iPod, everyone copied it, Steve made the iPhone, everyone copied it, Steve made the iPad, everyone copied it. Now there is no one like that, so everyone just copies each other.
What about Jony Ive?
He is a good designer, but he is not an innovator. It was Jobs who came to him with the idea for the phone, and Ive designed it brilliantly, but he didn't get the idea himself.
Steve Jobs seems to be a really big inspiration for you.
Have you read the book about Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson? Everything you need to know can be found in it. Steve Jobs was a marketing genius. He understood that marketing serves people. First you have to find what people want and then teach your computer to do it. For example, Microsoft takes the opposite approach, which first creates its own product and only then tries to sell it to people. It is similar with other companies, take Google Glass for example. Nobody needs you. At Google, they acted differently than Steve Jobs. They said what can we do instead of thinking about what people will really want.
Steve had a deep understanding of marketing and when introducing new products he spoke to people in their language. When showing off the iPod, he didn't explain that it had 16GB of memory - people didn't care because they didn't really know what that meant. Instead, he told them that they could now fit a thousand songs in their pockets. It feels completely different. There are more than ten great marketing ideas throughout Isaacson's book. Steve Jobs is one of my heroes and he is perfectly summed up by the following line he once uttered: Why join the Navy when you can be a pirate?
There will be innovation, but it won't be Jobs to make it a blockbuster. Jobs was not the one who invented the innovations - he was only able to promote them in a miraculous way and, above all, he was able to decide which of the offered novelties would be launched on the market. Jony Ive, for example, has a hundred times more credit for innovation. The first Apply was Wozniak, the next Apply was largely from Xerox. Such an iPod was actually created during a visit to Japan, where Jobs's colleague "accidentally" came across a miniature hard disk whose manufacturer had no use for him.
I guess I understand what you mean, but this is a ridiculous opinion for me...he managed to promote it...he really often made it up based on what he saw somewhere. After all, he didn't advertise a miniature hard disk anywhere.
No one denies Ivo the merits, but again, if not for the thoughts and decisions of Jobs, figuratively speaking, Ive would not have a job. And even there, Jobs had the main say in how it would look, he even designed it himself. Of course, he couldn't do everything himself. I don't agree that Ive has 100 times more merit. Even by mistake. And time will tell.
It's like if I find a "Y" shaped stick in nature and I make a slingshot out of it. So who is the innovator? Me or nature because it made this stick?
That stick and slingshot is an excellent analogy, thanks.
I can't agree on this one. :) Although I understand where you're going..
Jobs was an innovator because a lot of his ideas and initially nonsensical inventions turned out to be the right move (and a lot of them weren't, of course).
He was not an innovator himself, but Jony Ive, even though he is a TOP designer, ensured that it worked, but the one who invented how it should work was almost always Jobs, because he understood how it should work and what and how people will want to use it (this is where they differ from that bunch from Microsoft who don't make a product for people but for money).
Yes, he was able to sell it, but he was able to sell a product he believed in because he helped make it himself, mostly from scratch.
You can specifically state "because a lot of his ideas and initially nonsensical inventions turned out to be the right move in the end" ... you talk as if you and Jobs went out for a beer every weekend,
No he couldn't… read the bio.. :)
Steve knew for a long time that he wouldn't be here for real, and I think that the importance of the Apple Academy program, as well as how Apple is structured and how the company works, is not appreciated. I wouldn't throw Tim overboard just yet, the 'hiring spree' of specialists they have demonstrated over the last year is unprecedented in this industry and I think we will only be surprised when the curtain rises. If the 'next big thing' doesn't become the next successful category, then please, but until then I'd be cautious to say that Apple will fall flat
I don't think anyone is really throwing Tim overboard, but there was only one Jobs, just like Stradivarius, and Apple is still going the way Steve had predicted for a long time. Who, in my opinion, really failed significantly after the one that has an absolutely free hand, it's probably master Ive.
What did he fail at? iOS 7 has a lot of bugs, a lot of stupidity and nonsense, but at the core it makes sense.
you actually answered yourself, but after he got the highest decision-making powers and did everything his way, it's just a mess, iOS7 semi-functional so far and GUI and UI completely useless, just chaos, and it's not just a confusing keyboard. Otherwise, I would be quite happy to hear from you how it makes sense
Thank you editor for a great interview. This is exactly the type of article that sets Jablíčkář apart from the competition. Keep it up . . . :)
I'm definitely not an orthodox fan of Apple products, but Mr. Trott's claim that in Asia, they prefer to buy Samsung because of the price, is quite out of line, because in recent months almost everyone there spends on Apple products (iPhones, iPads, etc.). I witness it when I go there on business trips. China, Taiwan, Japan, everywhere I look around, young people overwhelmingly have Apple products. So it is definitely not according to the formula that they only want cheap things there... it was like that 4-6 years ago... when Apple was not available there, imitations and cheap versions of Samsung etc. flourished. Today everything is different! :-)
Steve Jobs was not an innovator, he did not invent anything at all. He was just an excellent marketing specialist, he treated the employees like a beast and was full of nicknames and nicknames. He taught superior management without professional knowledge. That's how today's managers came into being, professionally weak as tea, but terribly self-confident, who can't see past each other. For them, jobs are gods. Otherwise, I own some devices from Apple Inc. In some ways, they are better in some ways than the competition. Other than iOS 6, the next releases are mostly cosmetic changes, or outright patches.
Nice interview. Thanks for him.