Categories: Articles

Apple Stores – More Than iPods

The whole experience of an Apple Store is absolutely spot on. All of the great creative and business thinkers from Kevin Roberts and Seth Godin all the way to Tom Peters have already either written, spoken or Blogged about what life is like when you walk into an Apple Store.
It’s as much about fashion as it is about technology. It’s as much about connecting as it is about the power of knowledge. An Apple Store really does “get” the customer. The first one I walked into was mid-day, mid-week in a not-so-central part of Florida. Most of the stores were barren and you could almost smell the muzak of That’s What Friends Are For, but man were things jumping in the Apple Store.
People were checking out iPods, hanging out at the bar, trying to figure out if they should get a laptop or desktop as a handful of teenagers looked at all of the funky accessories. I had to lean over the shoulders, about two rows deep, to catch a glimpse of the iPod Nano.
Essentially, this store is way more about community than technology. The same way that Starbucks is more about community than coffee.
As a longtime IBM ThinkPad user, I do get tempted by the PowerBook when I step foot into an Apple Store. It’s also remarkable how they seamlessly connect you to the website, packaging, hardware, software and peripherals – a truly integrated brand (two words I thought I would never use in my Blog).
Apple is a super brand. My hopes are that in five years they can maintain. I would hate to see an Apple Store look like a Sharper Image store does today.

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.