Apple PR – A Review (9to5Mac)

[Bill Davis]

[Franz Bieberkopf] “30 people seems tiny to me; what is it about Apple lead you to expect such a small cohort?

What is it about Jobs gave you insight into “Momentum” as one of 8 teams? You didn’t expect other areas of focus?

What is it about Tim Cook made you know he’d be poaching PR people where Jobs didn’t?

I don’t read Macworld much, but did you expect they’d been cut off from preview units?”

In order,

it’s 30 in Cupertino for corporate stuff. I’d expect PR Operations also happen in the hundreds of other operations they maintain worldwide. Small teams are the rule rather than the exception in corporate thinking those days. In every large corporate institution I’ve dealt with in the past decade, head counts at the corporate office level are WAY down. It was extremely typical for a 5 person team to be cut to 2 or 3 during the recession, and for that team to STILL be operating with it’s reduced head count today.

B – I have no special insight about Jobs or Momentum. But it makes strategic sense to leverage the effectiveness of fewer bodies into larger results with the “surrogates” tactics. And from what I witnessed in the general corporate world, “focus” has two wildly different effectivenesses in PR. There’s the strategic PR focus over which you have just vague control. And then there are the times when the plan gets totally derailed by breaking events and you have to react to external forces. That’s when the stuff like message discipline comes into play. That’s part of the reason people say Apple isn’t as “transparent” as they’d like. That and the Sarbanes stuff where release of strategic information can get you slapped for being inappropriately “forward looking” and get the SEC up in your grill. IMO It’s complicated.

C – that stuff is “team building” 101. It’s the holy grail of the executive suite. With Apple’s resources, size and clout, there’s not a huge pool of executive talent that can take those slots. So “poaching” is the coin of the realm. It’s supposed to be done in a civilized manner, but honestly, in assessing a company’s viability as to future earnings – it’s not the products or even always the current sales that count. It’s the PEOPLE you have in place. Confidence in the team – from both inside and outside the company – is the single largest value a company carries. Honestly, as miraculous as Mr. Jobs was as a visionary. Mr Cook, in keeping Apple not just operating, but excelling in the post Jobs era is nothing short of astonishing. Talk about insane expectations. How many people could have filled those shoes? Team Building. It’s a BIG deal.

D – To answer the MacWorld Magazine question, absolutely. As a guy who spent 10 years writing a magazine column, I watched through the 90s as all the magazine column lengths went from 1500 words, down to an average of 900 words over the decade, and as the magazine went from thick and hefty to sometimes not much larger than a robust sales flyer. Look where the article says the focus (and press credentials) was shifted. Blogs, AnandTech on the rise and traditional print magazines on the decline.
That’s just a no-brainer. IMO.

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[Franz Bieberkopf]

[Bill Davis] “In order, …”

Bill,

Likewise …

[Bill Davis] “A – It’s 30 in Cupertino for corporate stuff. I’d expect PR Operations also happen in the hundreds of other operations they maintain worldwide.”

You would expect so. it would therefor be surprising to find that it isn’t hundreds. (Unless you’re referring to “operations” as events and such and not staff.)

[Bill Davis] ” I have no special insight about Jobs or Momentum. But it makes strategic sense”

What I found interesting was the specifics (i.e. what the 8 groups are and who does what) – not the generalities of strategy (about which we know little beyond this article). While you may have know what Bill Evans does, and that he was paired so closely with Phil Schiller, I’m not sure why you would expect “anyone” to know that.

[Bill Davis] “C – that stuff is “team building” 101.”

I’m not sure of your definition of “team building” here – I think you mean hiring? (That is not common usage.) Anyway, I’m not sure what it is about your understand of Cook vs. Jobs that lead you to expect one would bring the operations in house where the other wouldn’t, and one would poach PR talent where the other wouldn’t. This is quite aside from the question of the identification of the PR firm (which I guess you knew before as well?)

[Bill Davis] “D – To answer the MacWorld Magazine question, absolutely.”

You’ve outlined that you understand the reasons Apple expanded their relationships (with blogs etc.). It doesn’t necessarily follow that you would expect magazines to be cut off. And certainly most readers would be surprised that Macworld is cut off from preview hardware – why do you think no one would be surprised by that?

I think in general there is a lot of unknown, if not surprising, information and insight in the article.

… or, as Tim put it:

[Tim Wilson] “I think this article is a big deal: an unprecedented look at one of the most distinctively characteristic dynamics within an uncharacteristically distinctive organization. […] So please, no poo-pooing this as non-news without discussing what of this has been previously reported, and not just surmised. I see a bunch in this article that not only flies in the face of previous assumptions, but also provides details that I sincerely doubt have ever been published before. I invite anyone to please point to specifics where this isn’t the case.”

Franz.

[Bill Davis]

My only response – and this is for both Franz and to our gracious host Tim – this all strikes me as about as “inside baseball” as it’s possible to get.

I agree it’s news, I’m just not sure how important. It’s clearly fascinating for those who feel it’s useful to have some enhanced ability to parse the PR statements to know which players on the PR team are “paired” with which executives. But in the greater scheme of things, I’m not sure it really means much of anything.

The original article was a nice piece of reporting and writing, but does it change anything?

Perhaps we’re moving into an era where the bubblegum card packets will arrive for the computer software teams – instead of the sports teams.

Will there will be pros who track the “earned media stats” of the PR teams across companies?

Cue Brian Williams:
“In tech news today, Intel released Bob Smith, the assistant product manager for CPU software and picked up two materials engineers and an unnamed MBA. The Division manager praised Mr. Smith as a seasoned PR pro, but the team felt he lacked depth in Social Media and Mobile Devices.”

And how do you score that in your “fantasy league” corporate rosters?

My kid introduced me to an acronym when he was about 7 and I tended to over-explain things to him.

He’d hold up his hand and say “MITIN” (pronounced like the wooly glove) – meaning “More Information Than I Need.”

I suspect that while this is certainly “news” – perhaps even to be seen quite fairly as Cow Forum Important News – I’m still not sure that it’s “actionable” news.

Then again, I’ve been wrong before and If I’m wrong about this – and we DO see those bubblegum cards in the future, I’ll be OK with it.

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.

[Aindreas Gallagher]

[David Lawrence] “I’m actually impressed with their progress all things considered.”

I guess? although that period where major red.g etc plugs died for months on end does stick in the mind.
How has it been logging? if you’re not making monster timelines do you like the performance?

The group table video with the hollywood guy off the will smith film was funny – given the other guy sitting there from fcpxworks was fresh off the fcpx team – everyone kept asking about masterclip audio plugin drop to roles to effect some kind of bussing, and also nearly begging to widen the audio meter guis?
It’s hard to get a sense if apple are going to do any of that. fcpxworks guy kept hinting at the alex4d private calls list in x in general.
but you’d think he would do that.

https://vimeo.com/user1590967/videos http://www.ogallchoir.net promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics

[Franz Bieberkopf]

[David Lawrence] “how many people do you think Apple has working on specialty software that accounts for less than 1% of their yearly revenue?”

[Aindreas Gallagher] “It’s hard to get a sense if apple are going to do any of that.”

Another (so far unmentioned) implication from my post the other week is the drop in revenue from Final Cut Pro.

The implications of that graph are a revenue of probably a couple hundred million dollars per year in 2010 for FCP7, and something like sixty million in 2013 for FCPX.

Then measure that against the development evident in the FCP6-7 upgrade.

Franz.

[Charlie Austin]

[Franz Bieberkopf] “a couple hundred million dollars per year in 2010 for FCP7, and something like sixty million in 2013 for FCPX.”

Not that it matters, but add in Compressor, Motion, and maybe Logic to that FCP X total. Rcp 7 wasn’t sold alone.

————————————————————-

~ My FCPX Babbling blog ~
~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~

[Aindreas Gallagher]

apple still might have mis-cued. They took a stance that they could make their own intellectual statement on editing working from the base they had.
it doesn’t really look like that worked out. even on a profit perspective X isn’t arcing where you would want it to go off the graphs. virtually all long form that was 7 is now avid, and short form Disney and Viacom, CNN, Reuters, BBC worldwide, Hogarth and a pile of others are transitioning to Premiere Pro.

what apple strategically had with 7 they simply don’t have anymore. they constructed FCPX as a laid egg in private and now they have that.

https://vimeo.com/user1590967/videos http://www.ogallchoir.net promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics

[Bill Davis]

[Aindreas Gallagher] ” they constructed FCPX as a laid egg in private and now they have that.
“

Good to see you back on form, Aindreas.

Takes me back to the first year here when you were constantly crowing about X being a toy, a disaster, and not capable of anything serious.

Then we lost you for a while when you had to face the fact that it was selling well and doing excellent work.

And now it appears having placed your bet on Premier, you’ve gone back to your original form. It’s kinda comforting. Good luck with the emotional separation.

If you’re making a clean break, you might want to avoid the “round table” show this next time. They’ve moved it to 1pm Pacific Coast Time because of the interest in Europe (where the show often airs in the middle of the night.)

I know this because they’re flying me out to do the show, so to keep your blood pressure down, you can either find something else to do during the live show – or perhaps save up some overripe fruit for chucking at the screen?

Wish me luck – or not.

Your call.

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.

[Jp Pelc]

Personally I hate Apple and it’s PR. Don’t get me wrong, OSX is great along with many other Apple products, but the fanboyism that is displayed for this company is ridiculous. The sense of allegiance, pride, elitism, awe, wonder that people get from looking at a man on stage talking about a cell phone with 2 new features is a bit over the top, and it’s mostly generated by the PR department and their ridiculously gated and self-worshiping promo events. Bleh

[Tim Wilson]

My antipathy for Apple can be seen from outer space.

But I don’t agree AT ALL that Apple PR is manufacturing excitement. Can’t be done. All PR can do is place stories and try to manage their content. Your example of 2 new features on stage is actually on the nose: that’s not PR. It’s a dude on stage. Make of it whatever you will, but there’s no message to manage. It is what it is.

I say this as a guy whose company included a bustling PR business, worked with both corporate and agency PR as an industry writer, and from inside major companies as both a message generator and someone with direct responsibility for interacting with both corporate and agency PR, and press, on outbound messaging. Even in a room full of confetti and balloons and a cheering throng, putting a guy on stage, no matter how well-managed and rehearsed, is a crap shoot. You simply can’t control response. Print is way, way easier.

But I do think that messaging has always been a core value at Apple, maybe moreso than any company in history. The message IS the product. To the extent that their messaging strategy is shifting, it represents a shift in Apple’s core values. That’s a big deal, whether you like Apple or not….

…because we could get into a whole ‘nother conversation about how Apple drives even the behavior of non-customers. In fact, we could start a whole forum about it.

In fact, we did. LOL