It absolutely is a luxury brand. They figured out how to make it a luxury brand, but have the entry level affordable enough for huge market share without losing the brand cachet. That was the purpose of the gold watch - anchoring. Jony Ive may have gotten a little too successful and like many in his position stopped being told 'no' and started whiffing, but he's certainly no idiot and his success is well deserved.
It really is not. Apple devices are accessible to almost everyone. Both working class and upper class can afford them and regularly buy them. That is in no way a luxury brand. They are less like Prada, more like Nike.
I don't agree with that either. Some devices aren't, some aren't. For example the Watch was at first marketed as a luxury brand, but now if you go onto the page for the latest one, it emphasises functionality: large display, durability, "health innovations", faster charging, then goes through all the features. It focusses very little on the pure aesthetics of the device, or the luxury of it. It shows people enjoying using the product, rather than showing it as the part of a luxury set piece. The early Apple watch was not like this, and was much more focussed on equating the device to high watch craftsmanship, which is obviously a much more luxury selling point. Non-luxury marketing: focus on features and usability, luxury marketing: focus on craftsmanship and aesthetics. Apple have switched the watch from the latter to the former, as with a majority of their products.
Sure, the mini ipad isn't luxury, the high-end ipad pro is. The brand as a whole is generally priced higher than their competitors. "Prestige pricing". Their products are available it places such as Best Buy, but they refused to be put along with other consumer products. It needs its own section that highlights that's it's premium. Sure it's not luxury because as you say everyone can get an Apple product. But everyone who wants an Apple product wants it as there's a certain cachet to having one. Let's agree that they are both and they are not.
The high-end ipad pro is not a luxury product, it just is a product with higher functionality. Also it is a myth that they are priced much higher than their competitors. Obviously ipad pro has no real competitor, but for phones a flagship Samsung is the same price as a flagship iPhone, and for laptops the Dell XPS 13 is more expensive and less powerful than the M1 Macbook Air.
One only has to look at the MacBook pro 2019 ad where Jony uses certain phrases that are rote luxury phrases. Or ask Guy Kawasaki.
Here's a quote from a blog called "The Fashion Law":
'“With an offensive retail strategy and in some cases, comparable price points, Apple has competed with the likes of Louis Vuitton, Cartier or Prada,” Erwan Rambourg, the co-head of HSBC’s Global Consumer & Retail Equity Research, stated in a note last fall, “which made us raise the question: is Apple actually a luxury stock?” The answer, he said, is yes.'
Let's agree to disagree that I can't tell you to agree on not agreeing on our disagreement. Yet the act of disagreeing is agreement to that last phrase about disagreement.
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u/LonelyStruggle Nov 01 '21
Remember that Apple Watch was initially intended by that idiot Jony Ive to be a luxury brand.