Marketing dream

The other day I was reading a post by Peter DeLegge. He’s been absent of writing to his blog for quite a while, since early 2007. The latest post I saw was about Steve Jobs’ open letter to early Iphone buyers. Summarizing, some people were unhappy because Apple had just decided to lower the price on Iphones. Early buyers naturally thought this would be an unfair move since they paid a lot not too long for exclusivity. Had they known Apple would do something like that so early, a good deal of them would have waited more. Jobs frugally solved the problem. You can see the letter here (thanks, DeLegge). It’s a simple and brilliant piece of marketing, both for the company and its CEO.

I tried to think beyond Apple, Iphone and the letter. I thought about glory for a marketer. For a considerable while I was frustrated and sceptical about marketing. A lot has already been done and many personalities are real marketing scientists, something that really praises me and makes me proud of following a career in marketing. My problem started with a lack of purpose and objective. Seeing constant mediocrity and lack of really substantial ideas in articles, ads, blogs and comments made by marketing insiders just showed a gloomy scenario of how stupid and shallow the profession can be. Then came this letter from Steve Jobs.

If you read it, you’ll see his solution is very simple, though it could sound as a cheap bribe to some. Maybe not that cheap, it’s true. However, I humbly try to imagine myself as part of the Iphone developing team. By developing I mean everyone directly involved, but most especially the marketing and product managers. Apple had done it before, they shook the whole world with Ipod, like Google, Youtube and other mega corporations have done in the past. It wasn’t only a technological breakthrough. A whole generation was affected culturally, legally, socially… you name it. The legacy still remains strong up to date.

Thinking of Apple refreshed, renewed and restored my interest for marketing once again. Trying to imagine a small percentage of the joy and recognition these marketers at Apple got for changing the world making marketing is definitely an objective of life. It shows every single marketer that marketing can have a purpose as long as people believe in it. Developing a major structural product and marketing campaign is something worth years of hard work and effort put into. Above all, it’s the function and beauty of marketing exposed to its entirety.

Best of all is to realize you don’t need to work for Apple to make big projects become reality.