Apple’s Cupertino launch event this past week was big. Its new $5 billion headquarters building served as an appropriately futuristic and heroic backdrop for the rollout of not only a new iPhone, but significant upgrades to the Apple Watch. The New York Times’ James Poniewozik offered a somewhat sardonic view of Apple’s augmented reality feature, saying, “Yep. That iPhone sky looked way better than the garbage regular sky that I could see through my garbage human eyes.”
A little too cool for school? Maybe Poniewozik’s cynicism misses the value people seem to attach to life at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs — self-actualization.
What’s New?
The iPhone X adds an infrared facial scanning technology that unlocks the phone (as well as the use of mobile payments) for its user. It also has beefed-up processors and memory plus a better screen, all of which should improve content consumption for things like movies, 3D games, FaceTime, and web usage. Last, and for me most interesting, is an enhanced bank of sensors and cameras that significantly upgrade the user’s ability to create and publish original content, including support for augmented reality.
The Apple Watch is also new. In particular, it is now available with native cellular capability, which means it no longer needs be tethered to the iPhone. This could be critical for users keen to have access to their personal Apple universe without the clumsiness of handling a device. Oh, by the way, the Apple Watch is supposedly the top-selling watch in the world.
What Does It Mean?
For many it’s all about whether this event satisfies the insatiable appetite for superlatives: the most valuable company in the world, the most transformative products in history, the greatest genius of all time. Apple sets the bar incredibly high. Will they wow us or disappoint?
Honestly, I don’t care.
I do care however about what it means for the continuing dematerialization of consumption. I have written for years about this trend as observed in things like the fading importance of oil and the rising value of intellectual property. Consumption once meant literally eating, wearing or physically using things. Today it increasingly means allocating attention span to ideas or experiences that tickle our brains.
Apple understands this, and, with its latest releases, is again leading consumers to the top of Maslow’s pyramid.
Personalize and Thrive
For consumer brands the biggest takeaway could be that Apple’s latest innovations dramatically improve the degree of personalization that can be embedded in products. Things like customized labels, materials, and supporting information services to enhance consumer value propositions can all be more effectively rolled out, used and tracked for iterative innovation. Kellogg’s is doing this today with Bear Naked Granola, but the digital link is still pretty rudimentary. The new iPhone could help.
Consider also the increasing importance of digital branding. Blockchain, for example, supports things such as product history, counterfeit protection and even loyalty programs, all of which points to a brand-consumer relationship that could skip the retailer altogether. This effect will be powerful in CPG, apparel and consumer durables.
Personalization also means customizing value propositions to individual physiology. Nike, for instance is building out a set of service businesses which offer performance information to athletes. Other health and wellness product categories, from contact lenses to skin cream, could certainly benefit from personalization supported by data collected by phones or wearables. Eliminating keystrokes from the interface makes it easier, more natural and probably more accurate.
And, of course, consumer loyalty — which can morph into creative fanaticism — could also be tapped to enhance marketing impact. One example is my brother’s “Friday 5PM club,” where a group of guys regularly share pictures of Bud Light cans around the world. Why not reward them with digital discounts on the next 12-pack?
Self-Actualization, Apple and You
“Achieving one’s full potential, including creative activities.” That is how Maslow defines self-actualization, and it sits at the apex of our desires. For generations supply chain has worked to deliver basic needs at the bottom of this hierarchy. Apple has led us on a climb up to the top.
Personalization is bidirectional, and consumer creativity is a resource to be tapped.
