Video: Steve Jobs on Apple and Value, in 1997

Has your brand lost power in an over-saturated market? With thanks to Trey Pennington, this short little video from Steve Jobs back in 1997 provides exceptional insight into using values in marketing to multiple the power of your brand.

I found it’s been valuable for me to watch this because in some instances when we talk so much about content online we forget about the power that design has. I’m always telling people that design matters but feel I’ve lost a bit of way, so I needed this:

If you can’t see the above video, click here, or watch directly on YouTube.

This video has reminded me to focus on the gut emotion that people feel when they see the logo of Like Minds or The River Church, or the feeling that they will feel when they hear those words mentioned.

Associating Value

The issue is that it’s noisy, and perhaps we are thinking, “If only I were Apple, I could have time to influence people”, but even Steve doesn’t take this for granted. Steve’s opening paragraph in particular which sets out the dilemma:

“This is a very complicated world, it’s a very noisy world. We’re not going to get a chance to get people to remember much about us. No company is.”

So surely the process begins with asking, “What are the values that the market associates with our brand name and logo?” I wonder, how many of us know the three values that our brand must communicate? Do we have that kind of crystal clarity and diamond focus about WHY we are and WHO we are?

Likewise, do we know what we are not? When we ran the Like Minds Summit with Visit Finland last year (the tourist board of Finland), in creating their social media strategy we were given their brand book that said what Finland WAS and what Finland WASN’T. It was a great help, and certainly clarified the direction that we must not go in with reagards to a social media strategy. However it lacked the final piece:

Knowing your benefits. I mean, do we really know what value we add? What is the product that people immediately associate with us? (Apple = iPhone, Microsoft = Windows) And do we know how that offering benefits them at the lowest level. I’m not talking about some crazy concoction of “it empowers people to do this and this and realise this”, I mean the once, two word benefit that cuts through the crap. The trouble that we had with Visit Finland was finding what their primary offering is, considering New York = Empire State Building, Paris = Eiffel Tower and so on. Without knowing this, you’re stuffed.

Your Leading Thoughts

So I would say to associate value we need to know 1] what values we are, 2] what values we are not, and 3] what benefits we offer.

• Can you answer all three for your brand? Or where are you stuck so that we can help?
• Alternatively, can unwrap more of how you have learnt to associate value?

Archived Comments

• http://dr1665.com Brian Driggs

  It strikes me these values are similar to proper grammar. I despised sentence diagrams in school. Today, I consider myself lucky to recall the difference between a verb and a noun, but I feel I’m fairly decent when it comes to writing; not to any particular standard, but in general.

  So it is with these values, and you remind me it is important to get these down on paper, on screen, on the home page, as it might not always be obvious what we stand for. (See? I think I just ended a sentence with a preposition. I don’t know what a preposition is, or even if I should have gone with “that for which we stand,” but I recognize it’s not 100%.)

  Value, for me, seems to be revealed through the Golden Rule. All our work stems from the way I felt when someone gave me the sort of attention I aim to give others. The suggestion that my opinions are worthy – are valuable – was that first tear of the wrapping paper. Each time this is paid forward, more of the gift beneath is revealed, the excitement of augmented imagination – all the wonder that could be the realization of this gift – increases, and the colored foil paper flies.

  This is something to work on. I’ll share it with the team.

• / Scott Gould

  Hey Brian

  I like your grammar analogy here – very useful for understanding how this all works and connects together.

  Let me know how you get on!

• http://dr1665.com Brian Driggs

  Thank you, Scott. Will do!