Sep/07
28
How Do You Compete with the iPod?
6 Comments · Posted by Lewis Wright in Competitive Marketing
Our 101st post on hookorsink.com, the newest and coolest kid in the marketing discussion world, will be more of an interaction. As of January 2007 Apple commands a 72.7% market dominance in the mp3 player world. Sandisk comes in second and Microsoft’s Zune is a distant third. While Apple still gets consumers to look at their product and think “what CAN it do” instead of “what CAN’T it do” (like they do with Microsoft) how do you create a competitor?
Seriously, this is an interaction. What are your thoughts?
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Hannah · September 28, 2007 at 8:48 am
Any company that wants to compete in this space is going to need to invent and patent a new functionality that has not yet been conceived of. Or, they will need to produce a product that is every bit as good as the iPod, but is available at a fraction of the cost. Plus, any potential competition will need to have a snazzy name and look just as good, if not better than, an iPod.
David · September 28, 2007 at 8:50 am
Not having any experience with the Zune, I would only be pontificating. But, I used to own an iPod, and in my experience, had a reasonably simple interface. Although, my blackberry has a reasonably simple, yet slightly slower, interface too, the mp3′s sound the same. So I guess it comes down to, ease of use, practical interface design, and the devices response time.
Sam White · September 28, 2007 at 9:01 am
No way to seriously compete till the iPod hype dies down and/or Europe forces Apple to license the iTunes AAC codex and America follows suit. Barring that the only open territory is mobile games – build a platform that is good for games and expand into other media.
David · September 28, 2007 at 9:14 am
There’s no way to compete. Apple has the market cornered by locking up the cool factor – the iPod is a cool device, plain and simple, and nobody wants to not be cool by using another type of player. Another factor is that, like Coke and Xerox before it, the iPod has become synonymous with MP3s making it that much harder to change consumers’ mindsets.
Adam Mercado · September 28, 2007 at 9:22 am
So, we discussed the features a competitor would need to bring to the table, but what then? What I think of most that separate Apple from their competitors is their excellent marketing campaigns. Once you have a real threat in an equal/superior product, you must sell it to the public.
Lewis Wright · September 28, 2007 at 9:29 am
I couldn’t agree more, they are masters of keeping consumers thinking only of the positive. I think the iPods are cool but have lots of room for improvement. I basically have to duct tape mine to the car stereo to get it to work, the navigation is just “OK” and it’s not very durable at all. Don’t forget that I paid through the nose to get one too.
Marketing is part of it but a company is probably going to have to come out with a better product. Apple seems to outdo themselves each time why isn’t another company looking for the next step ahead?
Then again, we may have to wait until the proprietary issues of iTunes and their mp3 format is resolved before anyone even has a chance.