@BigBrainBizness
Steve Jobs on why most companies fail at marketing: "Marketing is about values. This is a very complicated world. It's a very noisy world. And we're not going to get a chance to get people to remember much about us." Jobs argues that in a crowded marketplace, companies must be clear about what they stand for, not what they sell. "The way to do that is not to talk about speeds and feeds. It's not to talk about nips and megahertz. It's not to talk about why we're better than Windows." He points to the dairy industry as a cautionary tale: They spent 20 years trying to convince people milk was good for them, and sales flatlined. Then came "Got Milk"—a campaign that doesn't even talk about the product, yet sales took off. But Jobs' best example is Nike: "Nike sells a commodity. They sell shoes. And yet, when you think of Nike, you feel something different than a shoe company... They honor great athletes and they honor great athletics. That's who they are." Jobs notes that even iconic brands like Apple, Nike, and Disney need constant care to stay relevant. At the time, he believed Apple had "clearly suffered from neglect."