Apple Marketing Chief Phil Schiller Profiled as Key to Apple's Future Success

[j4zb4]

As soon as the projects Jobs developed roll out of the pipeline Apple will be done. You can see them entrenching already - all they're doing with the iPhone is copying Android and Windows Mobile and then filing lawsuit after lawsuit claiming they were the ones who were copied.

Apple, once the pirates of Silicon Valley doing battle against stodgy corporate giants like IBM has become IBM. And like IBM they will slowly fade from the scene. It's ironic that Jobs chose Orwell's 1984 theme for the 1984 Super Bowl, when another of Orwell's books matches Apple's evolution more closely - Animal Farm.

I really do;t know why super fandroids like you are even members out here... You clearly don't know **** about apple, its history, its functioning methods or its products...

sigh...

 

[fertilized-egg]

Agree. IMO and experience a successful tech company needs engineers and marketeers - both with some understanding of the other. It also depends where the company is in its life-cycle. At the beginning only the engineer is needed; where Apple is now, it needs both.
...

I'd argue that even in the beginning you need marketing. A big part of marketing that usually goes ignored is product planning part that happens before engineers get to their work. It's about figuring if there's is a market for your product and guide the product to that market.

Good marketing people are the ones who can sense and predict where the market will move towards in the future and Schiller apparently has been one of them. Apple itself is the result of Steve Jobs recognizing the market for well executed but fairly plain technology.

Unfortunately the word "marketing" has become a derogatory term but there are more to it than just selling snake oil.

 

[76ShovelHead]

No surprise here..

I've always liked Phil. His keynotes were on par with Steve's. He brings a 'liveliness' to the WWDC that I just don't really see in Tim Cook.

 

[Winni]

I'm never surprised when uninformed folks assume Marketing means Advertising. Interesting to see that Jobs, of all people, saw eye-to-eye with a Marketeer.

I'm not sure about what you mean here. Jobs was a sales person and he had an eye for design. He was a user, not an engineer or what one could call a technical person. If there were two people he would see eye-to-eye with at Apple, those two people had to be Schiller and Yve and nobody else - they were the only ones whose language he understood.

 

[zzLZHzz]

marketer is very important. no point making a product if you don't know who to target.

 

[drsox]

I'd argue that even in the beginning you need marketing. A big part of marketing that usually goes ignored is product planning part that happens before engineers get to their work. It's about figuring if there's is a market for your product and guide the product to that market.

Good marketing people are the ones who can sense and predict where the market will move towards in the future and Schiller apparently has been one of them. Apple itself is the result of Steve Jobs recognizing the market for well executed but fairly plain technology.

Unfortunately the word "marketing" has become a derogatory term but there are more to it than just selling snake oil.

I agree with with the need for Product Planning in an industry where customers can actually understand what the "Product" is and marketeers can guide the positioning of the "Product". However in a "Revolutionary" industry where there's no guidance available only intuition and vision, product planning can get in the way and is a hindrance.

Most tech start-ups start this way. e.g. could anyone "product plan" the start of Facebook ? or the early Apple ? or the early Xerox ? The best large HiTech companies usually have an "Off In Left Field" section where revolutionary ideas are worked on without any marketing "help". When/If they get somewhere, then they need some "getting to market" help. Then the product life cycle(s) start.

PS Marketing isn't Selling.

 

[drsox]

I'm not sure about what you mean here. Jobs was a sales person and he had an eye for design. He was a user, not an engineer or what one could call a technical person. If there were two people he would see eye-to-eye with at Apple, those two people had to be Schiller and Yve and nobody else - they were the only ones whose language he understood.

My experience of HiTech companies is that a strong visionary company head usually has a disparaging view of Marketing (not Selling). Usually it is only Technology that is held to be important. This does change as the company matures.

 

[petsounds]

The sooner we stop channeling Jobs better we will all be. Fair enough that you do not like the ads, you don't have to speculate what Jobs would have done. I hope Apple executives do not immobilize themselves with such speculations and get on with the post-Jobs era.

I'm definitely not a WWJD? kind of person, so don't assume that. I'm just speaking from personal experience and historical precedent.

I do think the ads are terrible. Apple has never been about product endorsements by celebs. They've used celebs in the past, but only to paint a picture. The Siri ads fall flat because they draw more attention to the celebrity than they do to Siri. Part of this may be Apple's fault; Tim Cook said in that All Things D interview that Siri's main draw and advantage is its personality. That's crap. Siri is only appealing when it actually helps users. But Apple may have given its ad agency this direction. Having John Malkovich pontificating with Siri does not show its utility; it just shows John Malkovich being John Malkovich with a talking phone.

 

[Mak47]

According to Ken Segsall Schller wanted to call the iMac MacMan, thank goodness Segall came up with iMac or we could be living with MacMan, PodMan, PhoneMan and PadMan.

Realistically, I don't think we'd be living with any of them. MacMan would have been a disastrous name. Without the success of that first product, Apple wouldn't have advanced any further--they were in big trouble financially.

Don't blame that one all on Schiller though, Jobs made Segall and Chiat/Day work really hard to convince him it was a bad idea.

 

[katewes]

I realise we need to take a broader view, but -- I'm sorry -- every time I hear Phil Schiller's name, it reminds me that he's the guy that says all Apple users love glossy screens, and that all you have to do is tilt the screen and the glare goes away. Just read the detailed user experiences at the petition site http://macmatte.wordpress.com which shows that not all Mac users love glossy screens, and the many specific rebuttals from users that mere tilting the screen does not solve the glare problem. Apple solved the glare problem by providing anti-glare screens for the 15" and 17" MacBook Pros, but Phil does not care a stuff about the glare problem for 13" MacBook Pros, iMacs and desktop Cinema Displays, as long as the money rolls in to increase Apple's $100 billion mountain of stash. So it strikes me that Phil is Apple's spin man, and he's paid handsomely because he is excellent at spin.

 

[Northgrove]

He pushed the iPad when many at Apple weren't convinced, and former Apple managers question his creative instinct?

 

[Northgrove]

I realise we need to take a broader view, but -- I'm sorry -- every time I hear Phil Schiller's name, it reminds me that he's the guy that says all Apple users love glossy screens, and that all you have to do is tilt the screen and the glare goes away. Just read the detailed user experiences at the petition site http://macmatte.wordpress.com which shows that not all Mac users love glossy screens, and the many specific rebuttals from users that mere tilting the screen does not solve the glare problem. Apple solved the glare problem by providing anti-glare screens for the 15" and 17" MacBook Pros, but Phil does not care a stuff about the glare problem for 13" MacBook Pros, iMacs and desktop Cinema Displays, as long as the money rolls in to increase Apple's $100 billion mountain of stash. So it strikes me that Phil is Apple's spin man, and he's paid handsomely because he is excellent at spin.

On the other hand, Apple devices often lead customer satisfaction surveys, including those with glossy displays. The advantage of matte isn't clear. Glossy is often prefered in environments where you don't have reflections. Matte can also actually worsen contrast when used outdoors since reflections are spread out more evenly across the display.

I think Apple offered the matte choice in a trial run, but not enough chose them for the work to be worth it for them, hence being discontinued in MacBook Air. It makes no sense for Apple from a financial perspective to build products that the majority of their users are dissatisfied with.

 

[WeegieMac]

If by eye to eye you mean inciting him to jump from a few metres on a matress for a product launch, he sure did... To be fair Steve saw eye to eye with very few people. I don't doubt that Phil is excellent at this job, I just don't think he has what it takes at all for carving out a creative way for apple in the future. Apple needs disruption if it is to survive without diluting itself. It doesn't need someone going make os x and atv look like ios so we sell more to the detriment of both of them, especially so the latter.

I take it you know Phil personally and have hands on experience of his work at Apple in the past and his future visions for the company. It's just that you went on at some length, appearing to have some in depth knowledge ... or was in just another post full of self opinion wrapped up grammatically to sound more factual than it actually is?

 

[blow45]

I take it you know Phil personally

Yeah we play golf together....

 

[katewes]

On the other hand, Apple devices often lead customer satisfaction surveys, including those with glossy displays. The advantage of matte isn't clear. Glossy is often prefered in environments where you don't have reflections. Matte can also actually worsen contrast when used outdoors since reflections are spread out more evenly across the display.

I think Apple offered the matte choice in a trial run, but not enough chose them for the work to be worth it for them, hence being discontinued in MacBook Air. It makes no sense for Apple from a financial perspective to build products that the majority of their users are dissatisfied with.

The key to your statement is "from a financial perspective". If the sole and only goal is to make a $100 billion mountain of cash - and stuff the responsibilities of being a provider of a major OS used by people from all walks of life, including professionals - then, sure, do what Apple seems to be doing.

There are some corporations (can't think of many) that balance the GREED IS GOOD thing, with responsibility for being the provider of tools used by people in society. Generally, with this philosophy, the funds from big selling items helps fund those items with lesser sales, but for important segments of the market. Hence, professionals need matte, non-reflective screens; 17" notebooks, Mac Pros with the latest tech; desktop monitors with non-reflective screens; etc. Providing such features needed by a smaller segment of the market would not dent the $100 billion mattress on which Apple sleeps.

It really comes down to attitude -- and whether MONEEE is the 100% only criteria that drives Apple's decisions, or whether there is any room for caring for the needs of professional users.

 

[stockscalper]

I really do;t know why super fandroids like you are even members out here... You clearly don't know **** about apple, its history, its functioning methods or its products...

sigh...

Sorry, but I would venture that I know more about Apple than you do. I've been a Mac user from the very beginning and have stuck with them through all their ups and downs. And having rode that roller coaster I can see the same movie being replayed again.

 

[rjayjohn120]

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[TheNextBigThing]

That was Steve Jobs, not Schiller

lol.