From the time the first Apple iPods appeared in 2001, to the fifth generation iPod video with it 80GB capacity, Apple iPods have relentlessly wormed (excuse the choice of words) their ways into the must-have vocabulary of those below the age of twenty-five. Apple iPods are no longer luxury toys; they have become the “to die for” technology of their targeted demographic.

And what exactly was involved in bringing the Apple iPod to the forefront of brand recognition in the six years of its existence? What the genius behind the iPod marketing strategy? The short answer is that if you build a better mousetrap, you’ll get grateful mouse haters who buy it and put it in the basement to do its work. But if you build a really cool mousetrap, which looks good enough to hang on a chain and dangle from your neck, you just may attract a crowd who have no particular problem with mice but are determined to have the world admire their cool.

Apple iPod Benefit Marketing

While it helped that the original Apple iPod actually did something a little more appealing than catch mice, the benefits it offered to consumers were available in several other brands of mp3 players. Enter benefit marketing, a classic form of advertising which emphasizes some particular aspects of a product, hinting that they are newer, or bigger, or more improved than the same aspects of competing products.

If a manufacturer is actually lucky enough to come up with a completely new benefit, it cab build a benefit marketing plan to distinguish a product from several competing ones. If the public buys the marketing, that product is the winning ticket to the Marketing Lottery Powerball Jackpot.

The Apple iPod came into the world loaded with the next best thing to sex appeal: coolness. The iPod was still in its infancy when it became suspended from countless Hollywood, rock star, and athletic necks. It became a signature wardrobe item for numerous television series and films targeted at the under twenty-five audience; and Apple was right there to capitalize on the free advertising.

The Big Names wanted to bask what they perceived as the coolness of Apple iPods, and Apple used the Big Names to persuade the rest of us that the iPods were as cool as the Big Names perceived them to be. They succeeded beyond their wildest dreams, and the iPod has ascended to the stratosphere of the mp3 market.

The temperature in the stratosphere, by the way, is about 26.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Cool, indeed.

You can also find more info on Ipod Skins and Ipod Speakers. knowipods.com is a comprehensive resource to know about iPods.

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