brand-building insights from Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs

1. Steve Jobs
on
Brand-
building
denise lee yohn

2. Walter Isaacson‟s book, Steve Jobs, paints a revealing
portrait about our generation‟s most accomplished
brand-builder, Steve Jobs -- and the brand he built.
Here‟s what the book teaches about brand-building:
Steve Jobs on Brand-building © 2012 Denise Lee Yohn, Inc.

3. on brand names
“I was on one of my fruitarian diets…I had just come back from
the apple farm. It sounded fun, spirited, an not intimidating.
Apple took the edge off the word „computer.” Plus, it would get
us ahead of Atari in the phone book.”
Steve Jobs on Brand-building © 2012 Denise Lee Yohn, Inc.

4. on marketing
“Markkula* wrote his principles in a The third and equally important
one-pager paper titled, „The principle, awkwardly named, was
apple Marketing Philosophy‟ that impute. It emphasized that
stressed three points. people form an opinion about a
company or product based on
The first was empathy, an intimate the signals that it conveys.
connection with the feelings of
the customer: „We will truly „People DO judge a book by its
understand their needs better cover…We may have the best
than any other company.‟ product, the highest quality, the
most useful software, etc.; if we
The second was focus: „In order to present them in a slipshod
do a good job of those things that manner, they will be perceived as
we decide to do, we must slipshod; if we present them in a
eliminate all of the unimportant creative, professional manner, we
opportunities.‟ will impute the desired qualities.‟”
*Apple investor and former CEO, Mike Markkula
Steve Jobs on Brand-building © 2012 Denise Lee Yohn, Inc.

5. on launching a product
“Sculley* described Pepsi‟s marketing success. The Pepsi
Generation campaign, he said, sold not a product but a lifestyle
and an optimistic outlook. „I think Apple‟s got a chance to
create an Apple Generation.‟
Jobs enthusiastically agreed…The ability to turn the introduction
of a new product into a moment of national excitement was,
Jobs noted, what he and Regis McKenna wanted to do at
Apple.”
*John Sculley, former Apple CEO
Steve Jobs on Brand-building © 2012 Denise Lee Yohn, Inc.

6. on brand campaigns
“Jobs and Clow* agreed that Apple was one of the great brands
of the world…but they needed to remind folks what was
distinctive about it. So they wanted a brand image campaign,
not a set of advertisements featuring products.
It was designed to celebrate not what the computers could do,
but what creative people could do with the computers. „This
wasn‟t about processor speed or memory,‟ Jobs recalled. „It was
about creativity.‟”
*Lee Clow, Chairman and Global Director of TBWA
Worldwide and Chief Creative Officer on the 1984 ad
Steve Jobs on Brand-building © 2012 Denise Lee Yohn, Inc.

7. on packaging
“„Steve and I spend a lot of time on packaging,‟ said Ive*. „I love
the process of unpacking something. You design a ritual of
unpacking to make the product feel special. Packaging can be
theater, it can create a story.‟”
*Jonathan Ive, Apple‟s chief designer
Steve Jobs on Brand-building © 2012 Denise Lee Yohn, Inc.

8. on stores
“Johnson* said that the size of a store signaled the importance of
the brand. „Is Apple as big of a brand as the Gap?‟ he asked.
Jobs said it was much bigger. Johnson replied that its stores
should therefore be bigger. „Otherwise you won‟t be
relevant…The store will become the most powerful physical
expression of the brand.‟”
*Ron Johnson, former head of Apple retail
Steve Jobs on Brand-building © 2012 Denise Lee Yohn, Inc.

9. on products
Steve Jobs: “When our tools don‟t work, we tend to blame
ourselves, for being too stupid or not reading the manual or
having too-fat fingers…When our tools are broken, we feel
broken. And when somebody fixes one, we feel a tiny bit
more whole.”
Steve Jobs on Brand-building © 2012 Denise Lee Yohn, Inc.

10. on advertising
“At the end of the meeting, (Jobs) would often take Clow and his
two agency colleagues…to Apple‟s closely guarded design
studio to see what products were in the works…
By sharing with his marketing gurus his passion for the products as
they were being created, he was able to ensure that almost
every ad they produced was infused with his emotion.”
Steve Jobs on Brand-building © 2012 Denise Lee Yohn, Inc.

11. on brand voice
“(Jobs) had been asking for ads that were different and new, but
eventually he realized he did not want to stray from what he
considered the Apple voice. For him, that voice had a distinctive
set of qualities: simple, declarative, clean.”
Steve Jobs on Brand-building © 2012 Denise Lee Yohn, Inc.

12. on values
“For Jobs, belief in an integrated approach was a matter of
righteousness. „We do these things not because we are control
freaks,‟ he explained. „We do them because we want to make
great products, because we care about the user, and because
we like to take responsibility for the entire experience.‟”
Steve Jobs on Brand-building © 2012 Denise Lee Yohn, Inc.

13. on organizations
Steve Jobs: “„You build a company that will still stand for
something a generation or two from now. That‟s what Walt
Disney did, and Hewlett and Packard, and the people who built
Intel. They created a company to last, not just to make money.
That‟s what I want Apple to be.‟”
Steve Jobs on Brand-building © 2012 Denise Lee Yohn, Inc.

14. on Apple
“„It‟s in Apple‟s DNA that technology alone is not enough. We
believe that it‟s technology married with the humanities that
yields us the result that makes our heart sing…We think we have
the right architecture not just in silicon, but in our organization, to
build these kinds of products.‟”
Steve Jobs on Brand-building © 2012 Denise Lee Yohn, Inc.

15. get the book: Steve Jobs
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Steve Jobs on Brand-building © 2012 Denise Lee Yohn, Inc.