How to Speak to the Instinct of Your Audience

Everyone is waiting for the latest news about the new iPhone ... never ending with Apple ... soon we'll see again long lines of people on Fifth Avenue in NY by the giant glass cube entrance of NY Fifth Avenue Apple store.

Which company can influence our daily experiences as powerfully AND playfully as Apple? Which brand creates lines at their stores comparable to those you see at rock stars concerts?

They keep opening new stores after new stores. Sometimes even next to one another like in Glendale CA (they now have two stores a few minutes away from each other), yet sales and visitors numbers keep going up.

Is it about technology or something else?

For sure they have carved for themselves a very nice niche for their high margin high tech high user-friendliness exceptional products.

But from an innovation management standpoint it is not only about technology?
They also understood that we make purchase decisions based on reason AND Instinct.

They really understand that if you want to create a cult you have to speak to the instinct of your audience and this is what they do in their stores:

- They make us feel relaxed by making it simple to use their products.
- They take away the anxiety of using new technology and design the user's experience with a three year old in mind.
- They make us feel like we belong: Total diversity is not only a corporate policy, it is a reality when you interact with Apple employees on the floor.
- They make us feel safe in dealing with sales teams: They created relationships based on trust and no sales attendant is paid on commission although all Apple employees are offered to share in the company's prosperity with stock options.
- They make us feel like it is an important moment: They created huge cathedrals made of glass and pure design to stage their products.
- They understand how much sales environment impacts the psyche of a customer.
- They make us feel entertained: They exhibit all their Apple products so we can play with them have fun and become inevitably seduced by the super smart solutions they keep inventing to make our lives more fun and easy.

In-store retail is dead? surely not for Apple !

Welcome to the new iPhone! I will get mine soon!