In everything we do at Apple, we take complex things and make them simple. It's about putting the customer at the center of everything we do and realizing that if we do that from a product standpoint, from a marketing standpoint, that everything else will work out.
Somebody had to bring innovation back. Somebody had to think different.
iPhone. This is the new MacBook Air, the iPad, to our own Apple Silicon. Introducing Apple Vision Pro, a new product from Apple, AirPods.
This is honestly one of those interviews I know I will remember for a long time. And this isn't just another tech interview. It's really about understanding how Apple has evolved over nearly 50 years from the Think Different days through all the ups and downs to what it is today. But what makes this conversation special is that we're not just looking back. We are looking forward. I'm speaking with Greg Joswiak, Apple's SVP of Worldwide Marketing. He's been at Apple since 1986 and has worked closely with both Steve Jobs and Tim Cook, the legendary leaders. So, this is someone who didn't just witness Apple's journey, he helped shape it.
I've seen Apple has a very distinctive marketing voice that people instantly recognize. If you had to define Apple's communication identity, how would you describe it?
I think if I had to choose a couple words, it would be simple and human. In everything we do at Apple, we take complex things and make them simple. The same for our products and it's the same for our marketing. We try to make things understandable, explain them in a way that is beyond just speeds and feeds or specs. We want to make them understandable. And that same thought carries onto the second part, human. We want to connect with people because really that's what the products are all about, right? They're trying to unleash the potential that people have to do better. Why are our products going to make their life better, easier? Simple and human. I would say simple and human.
Nice. I'm just curious to know, from iconic campaigns like 1984 and Think Different to right now, how has Apple's core marketing philosophy evolved to stay relevant and continue setting new standards for nearly 50 years?
Those are a couple of my favorites. You know, 1984, we were obviously very early in the company and we were founded on this very different idea, really how to take complex technology and make it personal, how to make it something that was for the rest of us and challenging maybe the way others viewed computing in that time. And so it was challenging the status quo, challenging the things that went against what we were trying to do with personal technology. And it was obviously one of the most ever run and I still love to watch it. It's a work of art. You know, Ridley Scott was the director and it was an absolute work of art. But my all-time favorite is what you just said. It's the whole crazy ones, the Think Different campaign. We celebrate even this major anniversary, this 50th anniversary. It isn't just celebrating us. It isn't trying to pat ourselves on the back. It's really trying to celebrate what the world has done with our products and the crazy ones was really celebrating those geniuses, right? Those people who are willing to think different in order to do amazing things. And for us, that was an important time because Apple, as you know, at that point was almost out of business. And Steve had just come back and we needed to explain to people why did Apple need to exist? You know, the world was dominated by these running Windows that all did the same thing. And, you know, there was no innovation there. The whole goal there was to try to just make a cheaper PC so they could try to make it less expensive than their competitors. And we had less than 3% market share. So, why did we need to exist? Well, we needed to exist because we needed the world to know that somebody had to bring innovation back. Somebody had to think different, right? And obviously it was very prophetic, right? Because that kind of thinking from a company that was almost out of business, you know, led to really amazing things, right? It led to the iMac. It led to the iTunes and iPhone and the App Store and iPad and Apple Vision Pro and Apple Watch and AirPods and you get the idea. All these amazing things because we were willing to think different. If you're looking for a theme, you know, again, we believe in human potential, right? We believe in the fact that our tools can make human potential go, you know, to see the most. I like to remind people that one of the original ways that Steve described the Mac in its very early days was as a bicycle for your mind, right? It would allow you to go further, faster, easier, then you could go, you know, you could transport yourself without one. And that's what we see. So, I hope that answers. See, I know there's a lot there. I could talk for an hour on just that question.
That was awesome. I mean like I love Apple products and I think Thai people also feel that way. We can just accept those messages from your efforts on the innovation and it's been 50 years. So congratulations for that.
Thank you and congratulations to us all because again it's a celebration of the community not just us. Again, we have over a billion users around the world who do amazing things with our products and we want to celebrate them too.
That's great. So, seeing Apple has a strong global identity, how do you maintain a consistent global brand message while you still create meaningful connections with local cultures? Like how can you do that?
Yeah, it's a great question. Look, we have certain universal truths. You know, who we are, and it's always important for us to be authentic. And whether it's a message around creativity or simplicity or privacy or any of our product messages, we want those to be consistent as far as what they're saying, no matter where you are in the world. But how you express that? Sometimes, you know, we have found creative ways working with our local teams to express those universal truths, those universal authentic truths for us to express those in a way that connects best to a local culture and we love when we can do that because again it's allowing us to be us, but it's allowing the local market to feel that connection in a way that's most relevant to them.
I know that you have done a lot of markets and also involving with the innovation but before Apple decides to develop a new product, how do you evaluate the market demand and customer expectation? I think that is totally very important for the achievement of products, right?
Yeah, we don't generally have a checklist of requirements. What we try to do is try to understand people. We try to understand what people are trying to do. We try to understand people's frustrations. We try to understand trends with the idea that if we see an opportunity there for Apple to do something that's meaningfully better than what anybody else can do, whether there's been an effort there already or not, but we need to know that we could create the best product there. If we do and we understand people and their needs and frustrations and desires and where things are heading, then we want to pursue that space. Again, we don't always do it. We end up saying no to a lot. A lot of times we go down a road with something to say are we really feeling that this is going to do that? We are so committed to say we want to create the best possible products in any category we enter, we have to know we're going to do that otherwise we may decide no, you know, we're going to say no even after we've started something. But it is really trying to understand people and sometimes you can understand by trends things that people need, right? Because we're trying to build products that may not ship for 2, 3 years from now. So you better understand what you think they're going to need then, not just what they need now. And that's part of the art of the whole thing.
