Apple’s Market

Zimran thinks that the Mac Mini and iPod Shuffle are triumphs of marketing.

First, consider the iPod Shuffle. Flash drive mp3 player with no screen — you just put in your 120 songs and it plays them back randomly. This was driven by the marketing insight that many iPod users just set their machine on random play…

Secondly, consider the Mac Mini. $500 to get OS X and storage. Again, this is driven by the marketing insight that the PC market is saturated, many PC owners aren’t going to switch but may augment, and that they already own a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, but may be short of space on their desk. There is no new technology in this tiny marvel, just very intelligent feature editing and pricing.

Is this “marketing”? Or is it simply observing how a thing is used, and revising your product to meet that use? To my mind, marketing as a profession is not concerned with creating things which satisfy my desires, but in persuading me that I desire something which they wish to sell. It does not attempt to discern an unsatisfied market, but to create a market where one does not exist.