Apple gets the sofa, Microsoft gets the door
It’s way too early to predict whose products will define the emerging “home media center,” but 
at its big “Showtime” extravaganza this week Apple ran across the room and boldly jumped on the sofa. It can’t claim to own the sofa—far from it—but it certainly acts like it belongs there, with its Front Row remote in hand, new full-length movie downloads from iTunes and its sleek “iTV” device streaming Pirates of the Caribbean to our widescreen TV’s in early 2007. “I think it completes the story, and shows you where we’re going,” said Steve Jobs.
Microsoft, which has powerful technology of its own in this market, doesn’t seem to be inhabiting the same room as Apple. It’s standing uncomfortably back by the door, as if still wondering how to fit its classic market control strategies into this new high-touch, high-design world of mom, dad and the kids.
Apple’s brand advantage
What we’re seeing in Apple’s initiative is how a customer-centric brand strategy can undermine the market dominance of a far stronger player. Microsoft owns most of the cards, but it’s Apple who’s picking the game, and it’s Apple who’s dealing. It can do so because:
- It leads with its brand
- It has structured its brand as a holistic expression of the customer
- Apple has integrated innovation into its brand, creating clear customer pathways to higher levels of value.
These three elements contrast with Microsoft’s historic strategy to control customer choice, a strategy that puts internal limits on Microsoft innovation. While Apple is just as hard-nosed as Microsoft in its business dealings, it understands that by making Apple a brand of innovation it can create market opportunities in areas Microsoft can’t easily reach. Case in point: Apple’s five-year head start between the first iPod in 2001 and Microsoft’s Zune in 2006.
Some observations:
The power of customer-centric brands
Brands can be “about the company” or “about the customer.” Apple’s brand is the latter. Its brand has a supple, sensory texture that helps customers feel more alive. Through its customer-centric brand strategy Apple appears to be your personal agent in bringing about everything you’d want in the promised land of digital innovation and digital media: convenience, performance and completeness. Apple exudes a focus on “you” with such easy, holistic confidence that you want to jump on the sofa beside them. (That, of course, is the plan.)
Brands as “the customer inside the product”
One way to think about brands is to consider brand to be “the customer inside the product.” A brand built this way will radiate a strong customer presence. It does so because your brand strategy has integrated the customer’s forward path into the product. When the customer is “inside the product” you complete the customer as you complete the product, creating a powerful brand advantage. (A contrast to note: Apple works on completing its customers; Microsoft works on completing its controls.)
Apple’s “brand path” effect
I’ve previously described the concept of “brand space” and how a company can use a brand space strategy to gather strength in new markets before its products are ready for launch. There’s a corollary to this concept that we might call the “brand path” effect. Think of the brand path as a vectored brand space infused with your brand vision and brand qualities. It’s a customer pathway paved by the brand, in the direction you are taking your customers, even though your full suite of products hasn’t been delivered. They can see it, and feel it. Apple may well have the reigning brand path in the home media center space.
Brand path is somewhat related to the “halo effect.” For the last five years marketers have debated whether an iPod halo effect would boost sales of the Apple Mac line. Well, it turns out that was the wrong place to look. The real halo effect of the iPod will be in the home media center, thanks to the brand path Apple is constructing. Apple’s brand path is the iPod scaled up to the entire house.
The real “video iPod”
In other words, in the brand scheme of things the home media center will not be a “computer.” It will have nothing to do with computers. It will be an extension of people, as laid back and as comfy as the sofa. It will be a holistic, brand-enabled media experience, the purest experience possible. It will have the simplicity and ease of use of the best consumer devices, as typified by the iPod. In more ways than one, the home media center will be the real “video iPod.”