With iPhone 5, Apple Again Wins Customers By Selling Benefits, Not Technology

Though its iPhone 5 announcement was far more consistent with expectations than last year’s dreadful iPhone 4s unveiling, it ultimately did little to revolutionize the mobile game. As a welcome update to the antiquated iPhone 4s, the iPhone 5 makes tremendous improvements and looks immensely attractive.

But as far as what Apple is calling "the biggest thing to happen to the iPhone since iPhone," not so much.

Central to the typical techies’ disappointment with the phone is the fact that it serves to catch up with the Android phones from Motorola, Samsung and HTC instead of obliterating them. LTE support? Cool, but the other providers have been offering that for years (though Apple theoretically offers vastly superior performance) . Turn-by-turn navigation? That’s been available on Google-powered phones since the original Droid. A native 720p resolution? Oh wait, the iPhone 5 does not even offer that.

And, seriously, no micro-USB or expandable memory? Come on, guys, I know you want to do your own thing, but sometimes conformity is a virtue.

Despite all of that, millions of customers were undoubtedly brimming with delight as the Apple executives unveiled the new phone. Millions of customers are still struggling to contain their excitement. And come the release later this month, millions will excitedly purchase the iPhone 5 and fall in love with yet another Apple advice.

My snarky opening paragraphs aside, I will very likely be one of them.

When it comes to Apple’s iPhone 5, beneath all the fodder for techie criticism is a brilliant case study for wowing customers in the contemporary marketplace. Beneath a phone ripped for not reinventing the wheel is a showcase in using technology to open wallets rather than eyes.

Competitors might not want to borrow Apple’s approach to research and development, but they can certainly learn a lesson from the company’s ability to mobilize users.

The sheer innovation associated with communication devices is astounding, but when it comes to connecting with consumers, the technology cannot exist merely for technology’s sake. It must be built to deliver optimal value for the customer.

Apple, fully committed to that philosophy, framed the near-entirety of its iPhone 5 presentation in terms of practical value for the customer. And when a customer considers a new device, he is far more likely to select the one that will deliver the value he wants even if it is not the most technologically-advanced offering.

When discussing its A6 chip, Apple did not spend too much time discussing the clocked rate and the actual technology—it simply explained that it would offer speed increases and contribute to a lighter phone, two things that actually matter to customers. When discussing the screen size, it did not focus too greatly on the technical resolution but instead noted that it will add an extra line of icons, retain the sharp retina display, display websites and movies in a fuller screen and not force the phone to be too big to carry. Again, where other brands think bragging about a "720p screen" is the way to go, Apple boasts about how the screen technology will impact the everyday user.

Instead of merely touting the phone’s capabilities when it comes to software, Apple showed off how the improved Siri will work, how customers can neatly organize their prepaid cards, how users can make quick restaurant reservations, how users can improve photo-sharing and how users can play more fluid, realistic, graphically-driven games.

Even when discussing more technical elements, like the new speaker system and communications antenna design, Apple always spoke from the position of value to the mobile experience. From the get-go, the world’s most valuable company made it clear that it is not in the race to produce a phone with the best specs. It is in the race to create the phone that is the most advanced and beneficial when it comes to actually delivering what users want.

And it always has been, which is why prior iterations of the iPhone continued to sell even as other phones greatly eclipsed them from a technology standpoint. Instead of marketing its phones with ninjas or weird symbolism that is supposed to represent technological superiority, Apple’s commercials slickly show off features that impact how users engage with their phones.

Take Siri. The selling point was not as much, "This super-advanced voice activation utility for iOS5" as it was, "A way to more easily play music, get recipes, check the weather and engage in witty banter." Insofar as customers are buying phones for the functionality rather than the technology, is there even a debate as to which marketing strategy makes more sense?

Competitors are not ignorant to Apple’s success, and they have made immense strides when it comes to positioning their phones (though it does remain interesting that the best non-iPhone effort was Motorola’s "For everything iDon’t, Droid Does" campaign for the original Droid years ago), but the difference between how companies like HTC frame their products and how Apple does it is staggering.

Consider two promotional lines about screen design:

• iPhone 5: Anyone can make a larger smartphone display. But if you go large for large’s sake, you end up with a phone that feels oversize, awkward, and hard to use. iPhone 5 features a 4-inch display designed the right way: it’s bigger, but it’s the same width as iPhone 4S. So everything you’ve always done with one hand — typing on the keyboard, for instance — you can still do with one hand…This one gives you 18 percent more pixels for an impressive 1136-by-640 resolution. Colors get a boost, too, with color saturation that’s 44 percent greater than before. So with iPhone 5, the games you play, the words you read, the images you see, and the apps you love look and feel incredibly vivid and lifelike.
  
• HTC One X: We’ve paid close attention to every detail, ensuring this phone is as durable as it is beautiful. Minimalist design meets a 4.7-inch infinity screen with smoothly rounded piano-gloss sidewalls, a curved back so it’s easy to hold, and a unified shell for increased durability.
  

The HTC description is certainly not terrible, but is there any doubt about which one more compellingly speaks to the things that matter to a customer? Infinity screens and piano-gloss sidewalls sound really cool, but am I really going to vote against the phone that features a bigger, brighter screen for games and pictures but still conveniently fits into one hand?

The concept behind Apple’s value proposition is stunningly simple, and yet, so no brand is able to master the promotional technique so well. When designing and presenting a product to customers, stop thinking about what is most compelling for your internal design teams or how to offer more features than the competitors. Think only about why the customer uses your product, what he hopes to do with it, and how you can maximize the value of that engagement.

Let your competitors invest billions of dollars into gimmicky technology and focus on creating products that let the customer do what he wants to do better than he can with any other product.