I first encountered the curious phenomenon of product
loyalty writ large when I bought an Apple II Plus computer circa 1980. What I’d
really wanted was a Radio Shack
TRS-80, but I could not justify its stiff price. The Apple was more affordable.
In my efforts to learn how to use that product, I got involved with an Apple
User Group and read various trade magazines centered on Apple products. To my
surprise I found myself mingling with what felt like members of a tribe or of a
cult.
In many ways the Apple II+ was an incomplete sort of product
when I bought it. I had to purchase a special card for around $300 just to make
it display 80 characters on its screen—and I chose that route because, even
with that extra expenditures, it still cost less than the TRS-80. Nor did the
product have a very long official life. It was only produced for three-and-a-half
years (6/1979-12/1982). Then came the Apple IIe (1/1983), then the Macintosh
(1/1984), and so on. I bought one of each of those as well but then, thanks to
external influences—namely Brigitte’s work environment at Gale Research—I got
to know the IBM PC and parted company with Apple for good. It became obvious to
me that Apple was running a strange new kind of company in which the deliberate
obsolescing of its products was a policy—and a successful policy only because
the company enjoyed a new kind of customer better described as the fiercely
loyal fan.
I’d gotten into computers in search of utility. But
computing had another base: people for whom owning that product was
participating in a kind elite. And Apple did its utmost to foster the feeling
that, being an Apple user, one was a member of a vanguard. One bought a
computer, to be sure, but really joined a faith, complete with its prophet,
Steve Jobs.
Now this phenomenon did not stop with the Macintosh—or even
the death of the prophet (5/2011). It
has continued on with music ( ITunes, 4/2000), telephones (IPhone, 6/2007) and
now with presumably world-conquering apps like Apple Pay (10/2014).
I believe I am correct in surmising that Apple also, more
generally, invented the Celebrity Product. Now that phrase is used in commerce—and
has been so used for at least a generation—as designating products endorsed by celebrities. But the meaning
I give that phrase refers to products that are owned because their ownership bestows a gilding of celebrity on the
purchaser—and it matters not at all how good the product is or whether better
products might be out there. Apple’s products meet this test. They did so even
back when I first bought my Apple II+. Better products were already on the
market. But spending on toys is never really about the toy. They’re about the
Toy Plus. The Toy Plus participating in celebrity.
