Why Apple is a Groucho Marx brand
Does Apple like its customers? You have to wonder. I’m asking this after the latest PR blunder with Steve Jobs telling an inquiring student to “Please leave us alone”. Yes, from the man himself, Jobs telling a customer to go away.
Sure, I know Jobs is an uber busy CEO, but really media relations should take his phone away after the incident involving Chelsea Isaacs. Or maybe not.
Isaacs a journalism undergrad at Long Island University and having tried and failed to contact the notoriously unhelpful Apple PR team (a universal experience, I think) about an article she was writing about the Apple iPad and got nowhere she emailed Jobs and got, yes, a reply (read the full exchange – its worth it).
Getting a reply from the CEO must have been the first shock. The second was rather than rather than some friendly flimflam (good luck in all your endeavours, but pushed for time et cet) you basically get told to get lost.
Jobs: ” Our goals do not include helping you get a good grade. Sorry.”
At least he’s sorry, but really what’s that about? Maybe her email was asking for too much. I’m sure I am not alone in having received endless requests from students for help on their dissertation/article/survey. I’m pretty sure that since students got email they basically write to anyone who has a job for help. Low and high. It doesn’t matter.
I have answered dozens of surveys in my time. I am admitted am not a CEO, but a pretty lowly hack and while I agree generally with Jobs’ sentiment about “goals” not including helping students get a good grade I wouldn’t say that. It is as Issacs says just plain rude. There’s no need for it. Jobs might be one of the biggest tech CEOs on the planet, but that’s really not an excuse. Why not go outside and commit PR hara-kiri? Just a suggestion
A confession here (you might have guessed), but I’m not an Apple fan. Sure, I bow down to the general excellentness (it’s a word) of its Apple iPod and I loved the iPad when I had a play and will no doubt get one.
I don’t go any further than that. I don’t do Macs, Mac Books or Nathan Barley iPhones. But for me it is the product not the brand. The brand I think (sleek and shiny as it is) sucks. It is all take and no give.
I digress, this latest piece of PR fubar comes after Jobs told customers that they needed to avoid gripping their Apple iPhone 4 in the lower left corner — or simply use one of many available cases (pay up suckers).
Of course, Apple fans jumped in to defend the great Jobs as if, you know, its their job. That’s what Apple fans do. They are so evangelical. Like tech religion even though as a brand I’m not sure Apple really likes its customers/worshipers. It’s so old testament.
The thought that struck me (as I tweeted a reply to @CharleyLHayes earlier) was that Apple’s approach is the Groucho Marx approach to marketing. Your customers adore and worship your brand so why would you want to have anything to do with them? They must be desperate.
Read that way Jobs must feel fully justified firing off an email to some saddo Apple fan wanting of all things help. The cheek of it.
Of course, the thing is he and Apple will absolutely get away with it. Maybe the only brand that could apply this treat ‘em mean to keep ‘em keen school of dating, sorry, I mean marketing.
All Comments
Error on the email thread link…
Here’s the exchange: http://www.wallblog.co.uk/2010/09/21/from-chelsea-isaacs-to-steve-jobs-the-email-exchange/
That is the least of it. I am a fan. I have bought 7 ipods in its various guises, three iphones, one ipad, one Mac. Not to mention all the accessories. I am also annoyed that they continually update, that one charger wont fit the next gadget, they wont take flash on ipads and so and so on. Apple treat their customers like s*** and their products are a means to a greater battlefield Steve has with the wider marketplace.
That said, the products are generally very good. We forget that before them, PCs were very dull, we had walkmans and the phone was a functional accompliment and nothing more, there was no buzz in this sector so without them the rest would still be producing dull products.
And thats what they do well, good products. Yes they / he annoys me but I have given up caring, all this anti Apple stuff is boring and repetitive, they make good stuff and changed a market.
My last point is this; if more companies took the route Apple has taken ie great products, great design, attention to detail, quality packaging, wads of innovation, the world would be a far better place.
It says a lot about the brand, that a student feels she could e-mail a global CEO to fix her problem in the first place.
Would be nice if you could read the email exchange.
Who created it an Apple disciple??
Linked fixed, apols.
@MB – you make great points, it just doesn’t treat its adoring customers all that well. But i agree, products are good. Love my iPod and they last (mostly).
Hardly a ringing endorsement of the Apple PR machine. He should know far better than to respond in the way he did…
I am sorry, but I will disagree with the general consensus that Steve Jobs and Apple are treating students and journalists very badly. This student got the wrong end of the stick. Jobs or Apple do not care whether he will get good grades and Job’s first answer was spot on. If this student’s grades will depend on whether Apple answers his questions or not, then this student should revise his strategy, because it is extremely high-risk.
It all comes down to phrasing and this student should know it. In this case he did a very bad job as positioning at the start his good grades or a journalist’s job as the main reason why Apple Media Relations should return phone calls. This attempt to get Job’s attention alone should deserve a bad grade.
When Apple doesn’t return calls or give answers, people (students. journalists) make stuff up, write unchecked facts and may also bad-mouth the brand, which can be very detrimental to Apple. Stating what he would have instead published in his university newspaper would probably have had more effect on Jobs than hammering him about not getting good grades.
It’s always easy to point the finger at the busy CEO who doesn’t care for the poor student. I hope the good student learns from his mistakes and realises that the sun doesn’t shine out of his rear end.
@Boris You make some valid points: the tone wasn’t right (so fail), but there’s no need to be rude.
Yes journalists do speculate, but Apple encourages this and benefits from it hugely. Look at the iPad and the endless speculation we all endured. That turned into one long frenzy of pre-marketing buzz.
The big mystery is why doesn’t Apple return calls? Seriously i would like to know.
I approached Steve to help a post-grad student I am mentoring. The research the lad is doing is pertinent to Apple (mobile web) and would have offered insights for the company. I expect Steve gets gazillions of emails each day so I was disappointed but not surprised when he did not reply. But maybe , just maybe, his PA or another colleague could have responded. We would have felt differently about Apple, a great company, with a corporate culture that embraces secrecy, dislikes social media and is desperate to control every element of its offline/online engagement. Quite sad really.
@Tim Greenhalgh It’s such an easy thing to do – to show a little love to customers. It doesn’t take much and it doesn’t cost (that much). I love Apple, but they totally infuriate me when, as you say, by the things they fail to do.
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