The technology Adoption Model describes the lifecycle of a given product from the moment it first enters the market to the time it saturates it. From the perspective of customer segmentation, this model divides the products and their target customer groups into five categories: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards (Taherdoost, 2018). These categories are identified based on the customers’ willingness to try out new things, the perception of potential market trends, financial flexibility, and, most importantly, market saturation. A company like Apple has products belonging to each of these categories at any given point in time, but this paper will only cover the first three. The current examples of innovator, early adopter, and early majority products for Apple are iPad mini, Apple Polishing Cloth, and iPhone 11, and, with each of these, the company utilizes different marketing strategies.
An example of Apple’s innovator product would be the 6th generation iPad mini. Innovator products are those targeting the customer segment willing to try out the newest things and comprising a small subset of the customer range (Gainsight, 2021). One may consider an innovator for three reasons: it has been launched recently, it uses the newest A15 Bionic chipset, and it demonstrates a modest demand when compared to iPhone 13 launched (Yordan, 2021). The main marketing challenge for the latest iPad mini is to remain distinguished from the more popular iPhones. Research notes that iPads are in immediate danger of cannibalization by the new iPhones that share many of the same functions (Guidolin and Guseo, 2020). Correspondingly, Apple markets the iPad mini as a graphically powerful device for design (iPad mini, 2021). It stands in contrast to iPhone 12 Pro, mainly marketed for its camera (iPhone 13 Pro, 2021). The benefits of this approach include utilizing the product’s technical features, such as the larger screen and better graphics, and potentially reversing the cannibalization trend, but Apple’s own decision to cut iPad production for iPhones limits the effectiveness of this approach.
An example of Apple’s early adopter product is its Polishing Cloth. Early adopter products are those used by slightly more than 10 percent of customers and attracting opinion leaders (Gainsight, 2021). Polishing Cloth is a recent addition but is already among Apple’s most back-ordered products and attracts influencer attention, which allows considering it an early adopter product (Wakabayashi, 2021). The challenge is to convince people to buy a cleaning cloth for $19. Apple achieves it by using a minimalistic approach: the product’s web page merely states that the cloth “cleans any Apple display” (Polishing cloth, 2021). The page, with its small font sizes, is not even optimized for mobile users well (Chaffey and Smith, 2017; Ballard, 2007). However, the combination of the steep price, modest functionality, and popular brand creates significant meme potential exploited by influencers. Jokes about Polishing Cloth go viral, providing “earned coverage” (Kingsnorth, 2016, p. 250). This spontaneous influencer-based approach may reinforce brand image as elite-yet-costly and provide a short-term sales boost (Wakabayashi, 2021; Zhang & Huang, 2021). The limitation is that the company cannot be sure whether factors ultimately coincide to make its product go viral.
As for Apple’s current early majority products, iPhone 11 is a good example. Early majority products target relatively risk-averse customers who are willing to try out new things after gathering enough information (Gainsight, 2021). There are three reasons to consider iPhone 11 an early majority: it was launched in late 2018, is still supported, and, given that the average iPhone lifecycle is four years or slightly more, it should be just past its zenith and employed by many users (9tp5 Staff, 2019). Since Apple introduces new iPhone models each year, its main marketing challenge is to increase the upgrade rate from older models to fuel future growth. In the case of the iPhone 11, the company offers a discount for trading in iPhone 8 or newer (iPhone 11, 2021). The benefits of this approach are twofold: firstly, they increase, upgrade rate, and, secondly, the emphasis on recycling stresses the company’s environmental responsibility (Arndt and Ewe, 2016). The major limitation, though, is that this approach enhances the brand image of Apple as a whole, portraying it as an environmentally conscious company, but does little to market iPhone 11 specifically.
As one can see, Apple uses different marketing strategies for its innovator, early adopter, and early majority products, depending on the category and product type alike. In order to market the 6th generation iPad mini, which may serve as an example of an innovator product, Apple stresses its difference from the more popular iPhone 13 to avoid cannibalization, but the company’s own practice f diverting resources from the former to the latter limits this approach. Polishing Cloth is an interesting example of early adopter success, combining minimalistic marketing, high price, and brand image to entice earned coverage of influencers, interested by the product’s meme potential, and drive sales – but the success of this approach is hard to predict or replicate. Finally, the marketing of the iPhone 11 as an early majority product stresses Apple’s environmental responsibility, but the limitation is that it promotes the company itself rather than its specific product.
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