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Steve Jobs Biography: About Those Ubiquitous iPod Ads

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One noticeable aspect of Apple's iPod advertising were the sheer number of iPod ads on television and in billboards. At the time, it seemed as if Apple was just being particularly aggressive with their adverting, but Steve Jobs' Biography revealed that those ubiquitous iPod ads were actually being subsidized by the Mac.
"I had this crazy idea that we could sell just as many Macs by advertising the iPod. In addition, the iPod would position Apple as evoking innovation and youth. So I moved $75 million of advertising money to the iPod, even though the category didn't justify one hundreth of that. That meant that we completely dominated the market for music players. We outspent everybody by a factor of about a hundred."
Click to expand...
So, the so-called iPod "halo" effect resulting in more Mac sales was something that Jobs relied upon. In fact, it allowed them to outspend all their competitors for a large factor which further cemented the iPod's lead in the MP3 market.

Article Link: Steve Jobs Biography: About Those Ubiquitous iPod Ads
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2011/11/07/steve-jobs-biography-about-those-ubiquitous-ipod-ads/
Well it worked. As an example, I bought a MacBook based solely on my use of the iPhone.
 
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I think we can say Jobs was right on this, although I think it's taken the iPhone and ipad to really switch on the halo effect. Neither device would have existed without the success of the iPod!

Outspending your competitors by a factor of 100 always helps, assuming you can afford it...
 
LeiQQ said:
Makes a lot of sense. The more people use idevices the more they'll be interested in macs.
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Agree completely, that's how it was for me. My wife got a free iPod Touch 1st gen in a mobile phone promotion a few years ago, we both fell in love with how easy it was to use, and since then we've bought three iPhones, an iPad and an iMac.

Make it easy for people to fall in love with your products, and if they're good enough, they will.
 
The halo-effect happened to me, too

I too went from Mac-prejudiced Windows-user, from being so impressed with the unprecedented quality and intuitive interface of my 3rd generation iPod Nano.

I think Apple increased their Mac sales a lot more from spending $75 million iPod commercials to lure in new customers, than if they had spent it on Mac advertises. As so often, Steve probably realized this before anyone else.
 
But think about it - if one iPod had cost $1million, they'd have covered their advertising costs after just 75 sales!
 
Yet the way i found about the iPod was through two of my classmates (word of mouth not posters/ads) who each had the 3G iPod back when iPods still cost £400/$400 and included all sorts of accessories in the box.

The 15GB iPod 3G was my first ever Apple product and the halo effect worked because i got my first Mac, a 12" PowerBook, later on the same year. Granted i had been lusting after a Mac since the 15" Titanium PowerBooks but the iPod finally tipped me over and i haven't looked back since.
 
Then again, if you kept reading, Jobs was completely against at releasing iTunes for Windows even though it meant huge music revenues. Fortunately he did what he thought at the time was wrong due to strong pressure from his vice presidents.
 
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benstanton said:
Well it worked. As an example, I bought a MacBook based solely on my use of the iPhone.
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Completely agree I went from 'testing' an iPhone 3GS to now having a household of 2x 3GS, iPhone 4, iMac, apple TV and airport throughout the house. Just waiting for the HP laptop to die so the missus will let me buy an iPad :)
 
I'm baffled, because of how well this has worked.

I myself got my first iMac because of the easier intergration with my iPod!
 
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iBug2 said:
Then again, if you kept reading, Jobs was completely against at releasing iTunes for Windows even though it meant huge music revenues. Fortunately he did what he thought at the time was wrong due to strong pressure from his vice presidents.
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And if I remember correctly PC world voted iTunes as the best PC application for the year of its release!
 
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Brilliant Vision. Well deserved rewards. Think Diferent.
 
benstanton said:
Well it worked. As an example, I bought a MacBook based solely on my use of the iPhone.
Click to expand...

Exactly what happened to me, and by the sounds of it, we are definitely not alone.
Steve Jobs is a genius. He's the definition of "Think Different".
 
I'm a victim of the halo effect too - first device was a 15gb 3G iPod. 3 months later I bought a 12" Powerbook.
 
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I have used Mac's exclusively for seventeen years. Those adds simply introduced people to something that Mac users had already known, Mac's are intuitive, very reliable and well designed. When a product has all of those attritubutes, that makes them cool.
 
Another victim here.....

I went from iPod Touch --> iPhone 4 --> Mac Mini, MacBook Air, Time Capsule, 2 iPhone 4s and iPad.
 
I got caught in the gravity well of the Halo effect with the iPhone. I wanted one badly and in order to convert my wife, I replaced her Palm Tungsten W with an iPod Touch 2nd-Gen to get her used to it. A few months later she told me how much more useful the iPod touch would be if it was also a phone. We both got the iPhone 3GS when it released.

After the iPhone purchase I replaced my network setup with an Airport Extreme with two satellite Airport Express units extending the network -- at the time it was the only router that would do WPA2 with wireless network extension. Later I sold one Airport Extreme and Express to my sister-in-law and my current setup has 3 x Simultaneous Dual-Band Airport Extreme (2 satellite ones extending the network) and one of the original Airport Express for AirTunes (now AirPlay).

In addition we replaced our 7-year-old Dell PC's with 27-inch iMacs and got our children a Mac Mini. I bought the first generation iPad, used it for a year, then sold it to my sister-in-law and bought the iPad 2.

The total hardware purchases from Apple since that first iPod Touch have been:

- 2 x iPhone 3GS (now sold)
- 4 x Airport Extreme (1 now sold)
- 2 x Airport Express (1 now sold)
- 2 x iMac 27-inch
- 1 x Mac Mini
- 1 x Apple TV G1
- 1 x iPad (now sold)
- 1 x iPad 2
- 2 x Apple TV G2 (one recently bought and given as a gift)
- 2 x iPhone 4S
- 2 x Magic Trackpad (one bought as a gift)
- 3 x iPod Touch 4G (used, bought for Christmas gift to kids)

My sister-in-law who bought all but the used iPhone 3GS from me has purchased:
- 1 x iPhone 3GS
- 1 x iPad (from me, as a gift to her fiancé)
- 2 x Airport Extreme (1 from me, 1 newest from Apple)
- 1 x Airport Express (from me)
- 1 x 15-inch MacBook Pro
- 1 x iPhone 4S

So I would say that one little iPod Touch G2 purchase has snowballed into quite a bit more. We still have that iPod Touch G2 which has a cracked screen with a piece of scotch tape over the crack. The kids play with it. This Christmas they will each get an iPod Touch 4G to replace it. Then that original iPod Touch will become a dedicated remote control for the Apple TV2.
 
I don't know about the iPod ads themselves, but the iPod definitely was the gateway drug for my plunge into the Apple world. I got an iPod in late 2004 as a xmas gift from my favorite casino. That led to more iPods, and then a MBP in early '08, an iPhone in '09, a Mac mini in '10, an iPad in '10, an iPad 2, a MBA and an iPhone 4S in '11.

I don't think any of this would have happened if not for that first, free, iPod. But then again, the first taste is always free.... ;)
 
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