past.^17 The future would be about stuff, from music to phones,
powered by computers. The customer could carry these branded
products around, even wear them. Apple began its march toward
luxury.
The 2015 debut of the Apple Watch closed the loop. Its
introduction featured on stage a supermodel, Christy Turlington
Burns. The cameras panned the audience for gratuitous cameos of
famous people. And where did the company buy a seventeen-page
spread to celebrate the new arrival? Not in Computer World, or even
Time magazine (as they once had with the Macintosh). No, it was in
Vogue. And it featured Peter Belanger photos of the rose-gold version,
which sells for $12,000. The transformation was complete. Apple had
become the best house in the best neighborhood.
Scarcity
A kind of meta-scarcity is key to Apple’s success. It may sell millions of
iPods, iPhones, iWatches, and Apple Watches, but likely only 1 percent
of the world can (rationally) afford them—and that’s how Apple wants
it.^18 In the first quarter of 2015, the iPhone accounted for only 18.3
percent of the smartphones shipped globally, but 92 percent of the
industry’s profits.^19 That’s luxury marketing. How do you elegantly
communicate to friends and strangers that your skills, DNA, and
background put you in the 1 percent, no matter where you are? Easy,
carry an iPhone.
Plot a heat map of mobile operating systems, and the geography of
wealth illuminates. Go to Manhattan. It’s all Apple IOS. Head to New
Jersey, or out to the Bronx, where average household income
plummets, and it’s Android. In L.A., if you live in Malibu, Beverly
Hills, the Palisades, you have an iPhone. South-Central, Oxnard, and
Inland Empire—you own an Android. The iPhone is the clearest signal
that you are closer to perfection and have more opportunities to mate.
More writers have written more good articles on Apple than any
other company, yet most fail to see it as a luxury brand. I’ve been
advising luxury brands for twenty-five years and believe these firms,
from Porsche to Prada, share five key attributes: an iconic founder,