Branding in a New Age

This past Friday 12 others and myself attended the 4th Annual AMA UW-Whitewate Regional Conference.  I was surrounded with Packer Fans, cheese, and branding for almost 48 hours straight.  The theme for the conference was "Branding in a New Age."  Some of the speakers included Michelle Palubicki, marketing manager for the Green Bay Packers, Erick Soderstrom, VP of Brand Management and Advertising for AT&T, and Matt Ebert from Apple.

The most interesting speaker had to be the Matt Ebert from Apple.  He talked about how part of their marketing strategy is to keep everything hush-hush, therefore their competitors are always on their feet and wondering what the next great creation from Apple will be.  He also mentioned how this gives Apple a large amount of free publicity and hype from new products they may or may not be launching soon.  Matt also talked about the downfall of Apple in the 90's.  It was news to me that Jobs, yes Steve Jobs one of the founders, was let go of the company.  Matt described the culture of the company and how without Jobs, the company had little direction and focus.  The one thing Matt wanted us to take away from his presentation was that Apple's brand strategy is all about one thing: INNOVATION. Here are a few of Apple's most recent retail outlets that Matt shared with us.  These are beyond amazing, creative, and classic Apple for ya. 

Did you know??? -- ALL Apple stores are composed of only 3 materials: stainless steel, glass, and wood.