Apple at 40: industry views

In 1987, I joined Chiat/Day Advertising in New York as an Account Executive. Famously, the agency had created the 1984 Orwellian campaign for Apple to launch Mac, but more significantly for me, it was my introduction to one of the most significant relationships of my media career.

All inductees to the firm were greeted with what seems in retrospect, a revolutionary mantra: ‘Welcome to Chiat/Day, we don’t have offices; here is your cube. We don’t have secretaries; here is your Mac.’

Early fumblings with its too-small screen, piles of floppy discs, and puce brown case, have led to a brilliant affair with each successive device, to my admittedly addicted current 6-device tally (12 across our family).

They work, they’re secure, they’re lovely to look at, hold, and be with. As a digital publisher, successively with the FT, The Times, and now with The Independent and Evening Standard, I can attest that the creation and production of our words, pictures, graphics and video, or the realisation of our advertising revenues, subscriptions, and eCommerce transactions, would simply not be where they are today without the Apple brand, its devices, its way of life.

Apple turning 40 is a huge milestone. A congratulation is in order for a brand that has caused an enormous amount of disruption in the media landscape.

Part of this has been the introduction of the idea of ‘apps’ to consumers – a valuable way for media owners to reach an audience via mobile or tablet devices. Apple has also contributed to how consumers view content via a mobile device and has been catalyst for media owners to continuously innovate in how they engage with audiences.

Local media has embraced the need to adapt based on the changes that Apple has made and how the brand has developed over the last 40 years. We expect that Apple will continue to play a pivotal role in the future of local media and advertising well into the future.

Part of this will be the progression of Apple’s relationship with media owners and advertisers in the battle of ad blocking and how each will collaborate to resolve the issue.

Innovation in digital and mobile is important in local media but what is even more important is having a strong local media brand that can reach audiences outside of the mobile sphere.

Local media owners should focus on enhancing a reader’s experience and make sure they receive content in the best possible way – sometimes this is via mobile whilst other times it could be via print, or both at different points in the day.

I was a relatively late adopter of Apple technology; I got my first iPhone in 2012 having chosen Android previously (probably because I’m an ex-Googler!).

To me, Apple represents simplicity. There’s something about Apple that creates a strong bond with consumers. For Apple to succeed in the media they’re going to have to be disruptive; the industry is too fragmented and cluttered for any individual company to flourish without making noise.

They could do this in two ways: through ownership and control of inventory – although this will anger the anti-walled garden brigade – or through creativity, which is what I’d like to see, after all, design and creativity is arguably one of the main reasons Apple has grown to be a world leading brand.

Apple is not so much a tech company, more an international development office for human-machine evolution. Through shiny design, it has made productivity sexy enough that users are willing to trade some privacy for efficiency.

Apple also succeeded by knowing what the customer wanted – before that customer even knew what it needed. While organic development and iterative improvement are big parts of ‘good business sense,’ what Jobs and Wozniak really taught us was, to truly change the world, you have to start with a blank sheet of paper and take some risks.

In the next decade, the question for media will be: how much personal information are people willing to trade for how much perceived return? And, at some point, will the decision be taken away from them?