How Apple Brainwashes You
Summary
TLDRThis video delves into the dynamics of brand loyalty, using Apple as a prime example of a company that has mastered customer retention. It discusses two types of brand loyalty: emotional and practical, and how Apple's strategic product releases and ecosystem keep consumers loyal. The video also critiques the superficiality of corporate social responsibility and the power of branding in shaping consumer identity, ultimately urging viewers to seek genuine connections over corporate influence.
Takeaways
- đ± Brand loyalty, especially among Apple users, is a powerful social tool in modern consumer society.
- đ Apple's success is attributed to its unmatched brand loyalty, which retains more repeat customers than most other brands.
- đ There are two types of brand loyalty: emotional and practical, with Apple excelling in both by creating a strong customer identity.
- đĄ Customer capitalism is an economic concept where keeping customers happy leads to long-term value for shareholders.
- đ Apple's business model focuses on customer retention, which is more profitable than constantly acquiring new customers.
- đ Publicly traded companies often prioritize short-term profits over long-term customer satisfaction due to shareholder expectations.
- đ Apple strategically integrates new technologies into its products after they've been proven in the market, ensuring quality and reliability.
- đ Apple's ecosystem creates a 'walled garden' that makes it difficult for users to switch to other brands due to the seamless integration of their products.
- đš Apple's branding is so powerful that it has created a distinct identity for its users, differentiating them from users of other brands.
- âïž While companies like Apple claim to support social and environmental causes, these efforts are often part of broader marketing strategies rather than genuine commitments to change.
Q & A
What is one of the most powerful social tools in modern consumer society?
-The ownership of certain products and how one spends their money are considered powerful social tools, as they can influence social identity and group affiliation.
Why is brand loyalty significant for companies?
-Brand loyalty is significant for companies because it leads to repeat customers, who typically buy 90% more than new ones, and contributes to over half of a company's revenue.
What is the difference between emotional and practical brand loyalty?
-Emotional brand loyalty is connected to personal feelings, memories, or family traditions, while practical brand loyalty is based on rational factors such as reliability and trust in the brand's product quality.
How does Apple maintain its customer retention?
-Apple maintains customer retention by designing high-quality products that meet consumer expectations, withholding and strategically releasing new features to maximize profits, and creating a strong brand ecosystem that is difficult for users to leave.
What is customer capitalism and how does it relate to Apple's business strategy?
-Customer capitalism is an economic concept that emphasizes keeping customers happy to drive long-term value for shareholders. Apple's business strategy aligns with this by focusing on customer satisfaction and retention, which has contributed to its status as one of the most valuable companies.
Why do some companies struggle to prioritize customer satisfaction over short-term profits?
-Some companies struggle because they are publicly traded, with shareholders expecting the value of their investments to increase. This pressure leads to a focus on short-term profits over long-term customer satisfaction.
What is the significance of Apple's plan to integrate ChatGPT into Siri?
-The integration of ChatGPT into Siri signifies Apple's continuous innovation and adaptation to advanced technologies to improve user experience, despite being typically cautious about adopting new technologies until they are proven.
How does Apple's branding strategy contribute to its customer retention?
-Apple's branding strategy contributes to customer retention by creating a strong identity and ecosystem that makes users feel like part of an exclusive group. This, combined with high-quality products, makes it difficult for users to switch to other brands.
What is the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports in shaping public perception of a company?
-CSR reports are used by companies to showcase their commitment to social and environmental causes, which can enhance public perception and customer loyalty. However, these reports are often self-reported and may not fully reflect the company's actual impact.
Why might it be concerning if major corporations take on the role of driving social change?
-It might be concerning because corporations primarily aim to maximize profits, and their involvement in social change could be more about marketing and public image than genuine commitment to making the world a better place.
Outlines
đ± Brand Loyalty in the Age of Apple
The paragraph discusses the power of brand loyalty, particularly in the context of Apple users. It highlights how people often identify strongly with the brands they choose, and how Apple has managed to maintain a high level of customer retention. The paragraph also introduces the concept of 'customer capitalism', which suggests that keeping customers satisfied leads to long-term value for shareholders. It critiques the short-term focus of many publicly traded companies and contrasts this with Apple's approach to retaining customers through product design and ecosystem lock-in.
đ The Influence of Ground News and Customer Retention
This paragraph introduces Ground News, the sponsor of the video, which aggregates news articles to provide full context. It discusses how Apple is planning to integrate Chat GPT into Siri, a move that may not be driven by consumer needs but is indicative of Apple's strategy to evolve with technology. The paragraph also touches on the broader theme of how companies are starting to prioritize customer retention and satisfaction over just profit, as seen in a statement by major company executives. However, it questions the sincerity of these commitments, suggesting they are often more about marketing and public relations than genuine change.
đ Apple's Strategy for Customer Retention
The paragraph delves into Apple's tactics for maintaining customer loyalty. It discusses how Apple designs its products to provide a high-quality experience while strategically withholding features to maximize profits. Examples include the late adoption of USB-C and the removal of the headphone jack. The paragraph also addresses how Apple's ecosystem makes it difficult for users to switch to other platforms, and how Apple's branding creates a strong identity for its users. It critiques the idea that brand loyalty is often more about marketing strategies than genuine consumer satisfaction.
đ The Illusion of Brand Loyalty and Social Change
In the final paragraph, the video script addresses the emotional connection and loyalty that consumers have with brands like Apple. It discusses how brands are becoming more powerful in shaping our identities and social change, and how this can be problematic. The paragraph suggests that consumers should not rely on brands for social change or identity formation, and that the increasing focus on customer retention metrics may give brands even more power. It ends with a call for viewers to subscribe to the channel for more content, highlighting the role of community and genuine human connections over brand loyalty.
Mindmap
Keywords
đĄBrand Loyalty
đĄCustomer Capitalism
đĄPlanned Obsolescence
đĄEconomic Short-Sightedness
đĄCorporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
đĄEcosystem Lock-In
đĄBrand Identity
đĄRituals and Tribalism
đĄSocial Change and Corporations
đĄBrand as Identity
Highlights
Brand loyalty is a powerful social tool in modern consumer society.
Apple users represent one of the strongest brand loyal groups globally.
Apple's customer retention is unmatched, indicating the effectiveness of brand loyalty.
There are two types of brand loyalty: emotional and practical.
Brands aim to secure loyalty to win the 'consumer Olympics'.
Customer capitalism is an economic concept where customer happiness leads to increased shareholder value.
Existing customers are more valuable than new ones, buying 90% more.
Publicly traded companies are often shortsighted due to shareholder expectations.
Apple has successfully retained customers by integrating technology and manipulating releases.
Ground News is an app and website that gathers news articles to provide full context.
Apple's branding creates an 'Apple person' identity, associating sophistication and success with their products.
Apple's ecosystem makes it difficult for users to switch to other brands.
Brands use strategic marketing to appear socially responsible without significant changes.
Customer retention metrics may become mandatory for companies, increasing brand power.
Brands are forming people's identities, which could lead to reliance on them for social change.
The video encourages viewers to form their identity outside of brands for genuine human connection.
Transcripts
what you own and how you spend your
money is one of the most powerful social
tools that we have invented in our
modern consumer Society people will make
fun of a Ford owner in the comments of a
video and then identify themselves as a
Dodge guy in their Instagram bio but one
of these strongest and most prolific
brand loyal groups in the world are
Apple users and as an Apple user it's
kind of
dumb the huge thank you to ground news
for sponsoring today's video how's my
hair look yeah looks
good at the time of the releasing of
this video the latest iPhone is probably
about to be announced it's going to be
better and greater than any iPhone
before it it's going to sell millions
it's going to be very very popular it's
going to be great it's going to be a
great phone except it's probably not
going to be that great every year when
the newest iPhone is released there is a
predictable w of hype big announcements
and features that get covered across the
Internet it's a phone but it's so much
more it is a camera then quickly after
that the opinions and outrage over how
little has changed how this is just a
facelift from the year before and how
stupid people are for being Apple users
but those are just opinions and let's
not forget that we're talking about the
single most valuable company in the
world and most importantly they retain
more repeat customers than than pretty
well any other brand in any industry
brand loyalty for this company is pretty
well unmatched and it tells us a lot
about why brand loyalty works and how it
kind of doesn't make any sense if you
really start looking into it now first
off I think we need to establish that
there are really two different kinds of
brand loyalty and that there is a
spectrum in between them on one end of
the spectrum we have what I'm going to
call emotional brand loyalty it's
connected to our childhood or our family
or a positive memory a feeling that we
get when we have that thing this is like
you drinking Bud Light because your old
man used to drink it then on the other
side of the spectrum is the Practical
brand loyalty which is supposed to be
more rational but isn't actually this is
you drive a Toyota Prius because your
whole family drives Toyotas and they've
been really reliable and you trust the
brand to make a product that is good the
Toyota reference there is actually mine
I drive a Toyota Prius because my my
parents and most of my entire family
have bought Toyotas so it feels like a
weird part of our family identity at
this point but at either end of this
spectrum there is a lot of mental
gymnastics going on to try and convince
ourselves of the choices that we make
along the way and Brands understand that
if they can get your loyalty they've
basically won the consumer Olympics
which brings us back to Apple Apple is a
3 trillion doll company worth more than
a lot of countries in large part because
they have learned to play the long game
this has a name in the economics world
called customer capitalism and it's
basically the radical idea that if you
keep your customers happy they will buy
more of your product which ends up
providing more value to shareholders in
the long run if you're thinking this
sounds kind of obvious yes it is but you
got to understand these are economists
we're talking about they actually had to
come up with a term and a theory for
just treating your customers properly
because it turns out existing loyal
customers buy 90% more stuff than new
ones well over half of a company's
Revenue typically comes from those
existing customers except in our case um
because we get more than half of our
views from people who aren't subscribed
to our channel so I'll just take a
minute here while you do that please so
why aren't all companies doing this like
why isn't this just standard practice
because the sad truth is that the bar is
on the godamn floor see most modern
businesses today that you would probably
recognize the name of are publicly
traded companies meaning that they have
shareholders like you and me but
probably more so rich people who have
purchased shares with the expectations
of those values in those companies going
up this is basically just the stock
market where your savings if you were
very lucky to have any are invested
every quarter these business businesses
report their numbers to investors and to
summarize a lot of Economics degrees in
four words up good down bad but the
problem with this is that it's naturally
shortsighted you have to prioritize the
profits of today and tomorrow so that
your quarterly earnings can keep going
up in most cases this usually means that
companies are forced to constantly
expand and push into new markets and
develop new technology and buy up their
competitors and just never stop until
they rule theing world I guess I don't
know what the end goal is here and the
truth is a lot of this growth and
expansion has very little to do with the
customer being happy and more so about
making as much money as possible and
apple is different kind of apple has
done a really great job of retaining
customers and if you are an apple person
you might already have some idea of why
that might be when doing the research
for this video we found a couple of
stories about how Apple has been
changing their business model to meet
consumer needs but the most impactful
was definitely this one all about how
apple is planning to integrate chat GPT
into Siri which I don't know if that's a
thing that consumers need but it is a
story that we wouldn't have come across
if it weren't for the sponsor of today's
video ground news ground news is an app
and a website dedicated to Gathering
thousands of news articles all in one
place to give you the full context we
keep working with them them because we
love the platform and we think that you
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at ground. news/ futureproof what's
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being able to take a look at articles
from all sides of the political
spectrums lets us know things like how
the right focuses pretty heavily on the
fact that Apple won't be paying AI for
this integration while the left opens a
broader conversation about what this
means for the company as a whole another
awesome feature is their blind spot feed
which shows you what the left and the
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it also means that you won't miss
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news for sponsoring today let's get back
into the video do you remember how
earlier we showed you how economists
defined customer capitalism right like
how to treat customers properly as a
theory by the economists I want you to
apply that same kind of thinking that
invented that term to imagine how these
companies might try and keep you
interested in their product because
customer retention is not the same as
customer satisfaction listen these
companies are not on some sort of vision
quest to try and find out what truly
makes their customer based ticks and to
create something that is fundamentally
great and improves their lives and the
world around them it is about making
money while looking like you're doing
those things today it is not just
outliers like apple that are supposedly
putting the customer first in 2019
nearly 200 execs from major companies
including Amazon Pepsi Walmart and of
course Apple issued a statement that
business is no longer just about profit
for shareholders rather it is about
providing genuine value to customers
communities and employees alike such as
paying reasonable wages and supporting
environmental and social causes I have
to say if I believed anything that any
of these people ever said this would be
an absolutely Earth shattering shift for
the better but when you look at how
their actions play out it tells a very
different story see a lot of their value
that they're providing when it comes to
you know the communities and the
reasonable wages and the environmental
causes or whatever it's usually being
handled by some sort of PR marketing
with a corporate social responsibility
report these are well-designed pamphlets
created by companies to show the
impressive work that they have done to
make the world a better place but mostly
to make people feel like they're not
just exploiting everyone around them in
the effort to make as much money as
possible you can find these reports for
basically any majorly publicly traded
company just by Googling their name and
then putting CSR afterwards and these
documents look really impressive they're
really long and incredibly detailed and
outline how the company is progressing
towards these big important social
justice goals but they're not verified
by a third party and often are built and
rolled out in such a way that makes them
look really good but still allows the
business to basically operate as usual
we talked about this in Greater detail
in our Starbucks episode they have these
sort of showy environmental
announcements that are released
strategically just to appease their fans
enough to make them feel like they can
still keep going to Starbucks even
though they have done insert terrible
blank thing here and listen Apple
probably has one of the most impressive
documents for this and I don't want to
say that they don't care or that these
things aren't real in these documents
they 100% are their headquarters are
100% powered by renewable energy But
ultimately this is just a part of their
broader marketing plan to tell you the
story of who they want you to think
apple as a company company is these sort
of ESG reports have become basically
standard practice for any big business
today but where Apple really stands out
with customer retention is with their
products Apple has done a really good
job of Designing physical Hardware that
gives the customer the desired
experience that they look for with a
high quality product all the while still
withholding and manipulating their
releases to maximize profits a great
recent example of this was the USB
type-c charge port on the iPhone 15
Apple held out on their old lightning
connector as long as they possibly could
until the EU forced them to adopt a more
standardized technology and apple does
this all the time they basically
invented planned obsolescence they got
rid of the headphone jack just to upsell
everybody on their pods and instead of
keeping the design similar year-to-year
to save money each modeler is just
noticeably different to be recognized as
the latest model to command a higher
price tag with things like that you
would think that people would probably
leave but they don't and that's because
Apple does the products really really
well and they have a few tricky tricks
to make sure that you don't leave see
I'm I'm an apple person I I got my
MacBook here and I'm reading this
teleprompter off of my iPhone and I've
tried to go and use Android before and I
just ended up ultimately coming back
because Apple knows what they're doing
those yearly releases with the
underwhelming advancements to each model
year that's actually on purpose see
apple is always the last company to
adopt technology as it comes on to the
market they wait until a technology has
been proven for the most part or at
least been shown to have promise with
consumers and then they aim to improve
upon it and this is actually a pretty
great business model that I
fundamentally believe in Toyota does
this with their vehicles a lot too see I
have all Apple products because they
work the way that they're supposed to
they rarely have technical issues but as
many Apple users know this controlled
approach also keeps you trapped in their
ecosystem Apple products only really
play with other Apple products and once
you've used their products it's kind of
hard to go back it feels like a mild
hostage situation but it's not just the
technology that makes it hard to leave
Apple Apple has some of the best
branding out there I mean people know an
apple advertisement before they even see
the logo and with this Sleek modern
minimalist design they have created the
Apple person identity they want you to
feel like a sophisticated successful
well-connected individual when you hold
their product but one of the most
powerful and interesting qualities of an
apple person is that they are not an
Android person you probably remember
those famous early advertisements with
the PC and the Apple guy hello I'm a Mac
and I'm a PC but that ad is a metaphor
for a very real tactical branding
strategy that a lot of brands use
nowadays we see this really clearly with
the Pepsi Coke divide anyone who's
honest with themselves knows that there
is functionally no difference between
Coke and Pepsi blind taste tests have
actually shown that consumers prefer the
taste of Pepsi but Coke is still the
more successful brand and yet nine in 10
Pepsi and Coke drinkers remain loyal to
their chosen drink even people who
hardly consume soda at all have this
weirdly visceral reaction to even the
thought of consuming the other brand and
apple just leans into this 100% they've
gone as far as to make it harder for
iPhone users to communicate with Android
users this branding is so deep in the
Apple lore that now it's like a way to
tell people that they're broke like
you're so poor that you have the green
text bubbles when I'm chatting to you
you have an Android yes an Android never
mind I can't do this I'm so sorry
because I have an
Android wait what this actually makes me
feel kind of bad because I like to Raz
our project manager all the time because
she is like a staunchly py Android
person and you have problems with your
freakin Tech all the time and another
little Sidetrack here that I thought was
just incredible is that this apple main
character energy is so unshakable that
even in movies the bad guy never has an
iPhone Apple they let you use iPhones in
movies but and this is very pivotal if
you're ever watching a mystery movie
bad guys cannot have iPhones on camera
every single filmmaker who has a bad guy
in their movie It's supposed to be a
secret wants to murder me right now
entire videos have already been made on
the absolute Genius of Apple's branding
so we're not going to get too into the
weeds here but the bottom line is it
worked 92% of the people who have
iPhones right now intend to stay iPhone
users almost a third said it was because
they were too tied into Apple's
ecosystem or it was just too much of a
hassle to switch operating systems and
if you think that this kind of
irrational Fierce loyalty to Brands is
powerful now it's actually going to get
worse there is talk from Big names that
some point soonish it will just be the
norm even mandatory for companies to
report customer retention metrics
alongside the usual numbers and there
might be some good that comes out of
this change for sure but it's also going
to give Brands more power across the
board to create products and incentive
structures that keep keep you from
leaving on top of this we seem to be
more blindly brand loyal than ever
before with people feeling more isolated
and more stretched financially and with
so much chaos going on in the world
right now people are running to their
favorite brands for that fleeting
feeling of comfort we offer them the
fruits of our labor and in return we get
rituals that bind us together holy days
and the promise of Salvation we're told
that if we just give enough of our
dollars to the right God we can save
ourselves or our country or the planet
and this is why it hurts so bad when
we're betrayed we think of these Brands
as being on our side part of our tribe
Our Saviors our very identity and then
suddenly they go off script and it's
like we've been stabbed in the back and
our sense of self is sort of shattered
they partner with the wrong influencer
or they break off the partnership with
that said influencer or back the wrong
country or politician so we bring out
the pitchforks and take our businesses
to a different Mega corporation that
quietly hates us just as much as the
other one did they're just a little
better at hiding it because for all of
their talk of supporting values and
those big CSR documents it's not about
us or making the world a better place
it's all about making money just think
about how pretty much every big
International corporate chain flies the
rainbow flag in June except where that's
an unpopular opinion to have they don't
care about any of this stuff and it
shouldn't surprise us when they show us
their true colors or the lack thereof in
this case but we also have to ask
ourselves do we want these people to be
in charge of our social change because
that's where this is headed major
corporations are now openly talking
about how they have a responsibility to
change the world and I don't think that
that's what any of us actually want if
you want real change don't put your hope
into these Brands don't allow them to
form your identity and take the place of
a genuine human connection because
that's exactly what they're trying to do
the more fractured we are the less
connected we are to our neighborhoods
the more that we'll rely on these big
Brands to form our sense of self and we
really really can't afford that so
listen if you enjoyed this video and you
want to see more content from us and our
Channel make sure that you're subscribed
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