Describes wide impact on multiple industries

Instead of giving Apple a Marketer of the Year award, Advertising Age has presented the company with its first-ever Marketer of the Decade title. "Apple's influence on business models across industries from music and computing to entertainment and advertising, along with its impact on popular culture, media and, of course, marketing, has been indelible," Ad Age writes. Apple is noted to have forced changes in several industries in particular: music players, smartphones, mobile apps and tablets.

The company's TV spots are described as a "hit parade of the most memorable ads," include the iPod silhouette, Mac vs. PC and and "there's an app for that" iPhone campaigns. The "Switch" ads first run in 2002 are said to have inspired many other advertisers to copy the use of white backgrounds. iAd and the iPad are meanwhile thought to be having their own effects on the ad industry, the latter in terms of display advertising, and the former in the sense of spurring mobile advertising by its very announcement.

Ad Age notes that much of Apple's marketing success can be attributed to TBWA, an agency it has been partnered with since the famous "1984" ad. The one gap in the relationship spans from 1986 until 1997, leading to speculation that a relationship between Apple CEO Steve Jobs and TBWA creative chief Lee Clow may be essential. Jobs was absent from Apple between 1985 and 1997.

Cult-like loyalty is believed to be Apple's greatest asset. Ad Age remarks that during the recent "Antennagate" scandal, for example, people gave the company the benefit of the doubt. In general, "indignation at Apple's product gaffe and less-than-humble apology was generally ignored -- or even derided. Tech website Gizmodo took a lot of shots for trying to rally customers to force Apple to come up with a solution," the magazine says.

Even the company's retail outlets are said to be a marketing tool. Apple itself has stated that they are "designed and built to serve as high-profile venues to promote brand awareness and serve as vehicles for corporate sales and marketing activities;" Ad Age comments that they "have come to define the high-end, low-key, over-the-top customer-service shopping experience of the later part of this decade."

by MacNN Staff