So while I and other students happened to have a quite interesting discussion in our Marketing class regarding Apple and its products, the company was busy reporting its best earning ever yesterday, an increase of revenue to $15.68 billion from $11.88 billion.

While it is undeniable that Apple has made a strong impact in shaping our consumer behaviour and culture, it would be nonsensical for anyone to consider Apple iMac or Macbook computer a superior product than a PC. I understand this is an old topic that has been beaten to death, but I would like to point out a couple of facts briefly.

People argue and justify for the expensive price tag of Apple computers by its superiority in comparison to other brands of computers, such as Dell or HP, etc. The truth is, there is absolutely nothing one can do on a Mac that cannot be achieved in the same way on a PC through FREE third party software with little effort, from its application dock down right to its virtual workspace, or even its method of switching applications.

The whole saga associated with “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” advertising campaign was quite ridiculously retarded and lame, yet it worked so effectively and was such a perfect case study because there is a large segment of consumers these days who are so uninformed and can be easily misguided. The truth is that Mac is no different than any other PC. At this point, some people would probably cry out loud “but how is that possible? Apple is a hardware company!”. Sorry but I beg to differ, uninformed consumers like those are exactly the reason why Apple have been able to pocket mountains of money. The fact is that Apple is never a hardware company, they do not make any of the components inside their computers, not the motherboard, not the memory, and certainly not the CPU neither (well I would give them credit for their case design). Therefore essentially, the only argument can be used to differentiate Apple from other “PCs” is its Operating System. But then again this would go back to the previous point where pretty much anything on a MAC can be achieved on a PC, yet we unquestionably cannot say the same the other way around.

This just shows us that Apple has successfully found a niche in the consumer segment who are technically too lazy to even install a third party software. They were able to create this illusion, an “elite” or “superior” image associated with their products, that can effective help those consumer segments feel better and make up for the lack of their technical knowledge.

Having said this, I give my hat off to the Apple Marketing Team. Prior to the iPod era, Apple was never an empire and their products only really started taking off after the unprecedented success of iPod products. Their computers, specifically MAC OS and the way it functions, essentially have not changed much since then, yet their Marketing team were able to leverage the success of iPod and spread it across many other product lines.

Apple today is a $50+ billion empire, largely thanks to its Marketing team who have done a brilliant job in building the Apple brand image and have molded it to perfection throughout the years. It is undeniable the company has brought enormous change in helping not only the computer industry, but also the entertainment industry to move leap forward, and so we must give them credit where it is due. Although their entire image is based on fictitious characteristics but why should anyone of us be surprised? After all, that is how our culture and society are functioning today, and the only thing we can be assured of is that the future of Apple tomorrow will be even brighter.