“Privacy is a fundamental human right.”
It might have been a shock a few years ago to hear Tim Cook, CEO of the most valuable company in the world and one of the most influential figures in the technology industry, utter those words on national television. This was, after all, an environment where the unspoken truth in big tech was that infringing on the privacy of users was acceptable so long as it helped build better products. But this wasn’t the first time Apple took a firm stance on user privacy. In 2016, the company opposed a government order to open a back door on an iPhone to support evidence collection in the San Bernardino Case.
Since then, Apple has made a concerted effort to position itself as a privacy-first company. While it might have seemed odd for arguably the most sexy (let’s pretend like sexy is a synonym for valuable) brand in the world to pick a relatively unsexy characteristic to lead with, their foray into privacy was a master stroke in brand positioning. It significantly differentiated them in the market and enabled them to continue winning over consumers’ hearts and minds.
Okay, Product Marketer, What is Positioning?
A fundamental concept Product and Brand Marketers inherently understand is the power of positioning. At the highest level, positioning can be thought of as the place in your customer’s mind you want to own. It can be conducted at a product, solution, or company level and is a strategic activity that seeks to provide clarity for product development and go-to-market teams. It’s essential for today’s hypercompetitive market, where consumers are spoiled for choice for the products they choose to buy.
For example, think of the place in your mind Dove soap owns compared to Axe body wash. Or, if you’re into B2B software, consider the traits you associate with a buyer of Slack compared to Microsoft Teams. You likely have instant associations around what those brands strive to communicate, how they make you feel, and whom they are ideal products for—that’s positioning at work.
Positioning can be a secret weapon for any B2C or B2B brand to help them stand out from the herd. However, for it to be effective at driving growth, positioning must clear three distinct hurdles. According to Professor of Brand Strategy, Scott Galloway, effective positioning must be: differentiated in the market, relevant to buyers, and sustainable as a business.
Apple’s move into privacy met all three of these.
Unlike Them, We’re Great!
Differentiation is about identifying and communicating how you stand out from the competition. It’s one of the first and most persistent questions a business must constantly answer to own a market share in a perfectly competitive environment. Differentiation often manifests as a unique value proposition that gives life to sales and marketing efforts. It can be especially effective if your differentiated value simultaneously highlights a weakness in your competition—a concept in Brand Strategy known as Laddering.
The iPhone generates the bulk of Apple’s revenue, and therefore, approaching differentiation with the broader lens of the smartphone market as a first step was logical for the company. While competitors like Google and Samsung chose to distinguish on characteristics like the ecosystem, design, and camera—features they all had a meaningful claim on—Apple distinguished itself by focusing on privacy. Apple was so far ahead of the curve on this bet that they were talking about privacy as a differentiator nearly a decade before Google and Samsung were—thank you, Wayback Machine.
Does Anyone Really Care?
The second aspect of effective positioning is to zero in on something relevant to prospective customers. Ironically, relevancy and differentiation can often be at odds with one another. For example, a Nissan Skyline GT-R is highly differentiated from a Honda Civic but isn’t nearly as relevant for most people.
Capitalizing on privacy was an intelligent move by Apple because, in today’s market, it is a constant talking point for consumers, businesses, and governments. Globally, countries are ramping up the rate at which they introduce regulations to protect how businesses manage, store, and use citizen data. As a wave of legislation comes through, consumers are becoming more conscious of privacy and demanding more from companies they engage with. It, therefore, shouldn’t come as a surprise that businesses are actively hiring privacy officers into executive roles to meet the changing demands in the market. All that to say, in today’s climate, privacy is highly relevant for buyers.
We Own It.
The final piece of the positioning puzzle is to invest in an area that is sustainable for the business. Key resources such as technology, intellectual property, and people are some factors that can contribute to the defensibility of a position a company takes. After all, a differentiated and relevant message is great, but unless a business can own it, it can easily be copied.
Unlike some competitors, Apple’s business model isn’t dependent on selling user data to advertisers. They generate most of their profit on the initial sale of hardware devices. As a result, they have no interest in pulling user data beyond supporting the most basic facilities of the iPhone. In fact, a recent report found that Google’s Android OS pulls 20 times more user data than Apple’s iOS.
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Apple’s positioning around privacy is one of the shrewdest strategic marketing investments I’ve seen from them recently. It may not have the same creative prowess as the Macintosh Superbowl Ad of 1984 or Steve Jobs’s initial iPhone unveiling, but its ability to imbue the entire organization with purpose is unmatched. It’s differentiated, relevant, and sustainable—a winning trio for the business.
The reverence of the Apple brand stems from how they position it, which has evolved over time. However, it’s always been a critical contributor to their success and will undoubtedly continue enabling them to flourish as a company.
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