Topic: Catwalk credentials
Sector: Business
Page: 60
Summary:
Recently, because I just bought a new Iphone, I am interesting for the context that concerned apple.
Apple has long been something of a technologic house. But its glory has declined since the death of Steven Jobs in 2011. These main competitors of Apple, Google and Samsung, both take some smartphone function into their respective product. A bigger challenge is how it would incorporate fashion into technology for Apple.
Own Thought:
From next spring, Ms Ahrendts, who is the boss of Burberry（a big luxury brands）, will be a senior vice-president at Apple. Obvious, it is a predictable result. She will bring more fashion for Apple to strive to regain its glamour. And she can help it crack the Chinese market. Actually, Ms Ahrendts is the second luxury-industry chief to join Apple this years. Previously. Paul Deneve left his gig as CEO of Yves Saint Laurent to become Apple’s VP of special projects.
Maybe Ms Ahrendts and Paul Deneve can help Iphone to avoid being also-rans at least in China. And Ms Ahrendts brings another eye for beauty, and a knack for seducing consumers. They represent a wake-up call to technologists who ignore the importance of experience in fashion retail and branding to create an iconic brand.
What do Apple want to do? I don’t know, but I guess that Apple want to be a high-end lifestyle brand. In the last decade, Apple has been positioned itself as a consumer technology company. Values and cultures is very important at the core of a brand. However, consumer technology brand are less about “soul symbol” than fashion is.
At Apple, Ahrendts and Paul Deneve will be expected to do the same: sustaining Apple long transition from consumer technology company to high-end lifestyle brand, renegotiating belonging not in terms of technology proximity but style adoption. They may face some of the same problems that Burberry has had. As long as Apple focuses on the fashion mentality lifestyle, it will continue to wow its customers.
Lu Gao