Business

Companies are increasingly sophisticated with their direct marketing. Personalised letters and emails arrive, the contents of which are often tailored based on some sort of segmentation. Then the message is ruined as someone you’ve never heard of, with a job title like ‘Head of Acquisition Marketing’ or ‘Senior Customer Retention Manager’, signs it off.

Now, these people are senior marketers within their organisations. They’ve worked hard, they’ve helped to create an advanced direct marketing programme. Why then, do they undermine their sophisticated marketing structure by signing it off themselves? Why not the ‘Head of Customer Service’ or someone else who’s actually customer facing?

No one wants to be marketed to, still less do they wish to be acquired. So build the systems, develop the segments, come up with really creative content, but then take a step back. Stand in the background and let client facing people step to the front. You’ll acquire more customers from the shadows.

The UK’s economy might be coming back to life but people are still feeling the pinch. Wages aren’t keeping up with prices, times are tough and people are hankering after ‘the good old days’.

We see it everywhere. In politics, UKIP are making the most of people’s yearning for a bold, ‘call a spade a spade’ Britain. Both Labour and the Conservatives are pushing policies that preach to the faithful. We’re back to the days of left and right. The third way has gone away.

Meanwhile in literature, we’re witnessing the continued rise of historical fiction with authors like Hilary Mantel and Philippa Gregory winning awards and having their books turned into hit TV dramas.

In terms of brands, we’re seeing some great old names return. The Truman brewery, originator of the IPA, is back in London pubs. Last week, it was announced that Royal Enfield motorcycles are coming back home to the UK, having sat out the past 30 years in India.

Other brands are drawing upon the past in their advertising. Notably, Coca-Cola’s ‘Grandpa’ healthy living advert seeks to push an old fashioned lifestyle as the solution to the very modern issue of obesity. We’ve also seen the return of the Tetley Tea Folk and NatWest piggy banks.

Even brands with little history, like cycling apparel maker, Rapha, and clothing firm, Jack Wills, are basing their growth on heritage values.

Like the tight economy, this trend isn’t likely to go away any time soon. So there’s no harm in digging into the archives and finding the warm, familiar signifiers of better days. People are grasping after comfort blankets, smart marketers will provide them.

There has been no shortage of landmark moments recently at Apple. In the past couple of years they have lost their talismanic leader, launched the (very poor at the time) Apple Maps, become the most valuable company in the world and have subsequently lost a third of that value. One thing they haven’t done though, is change the world.

We’ve all become used to a new iPhone being launched once or twice a year. We’ve been conditioned to expect a rolling six-month cycle of product upgrades, new features and, occasionally, a whole new, category-defining product.

However, after three years without launching a new product (iPad mini doesn’t count), people have become impatient. Apple watchers trawl through patent applications trying to guess what the engineers at Cupertino will come up with next. Others simply declare that Apple is no longer innovative.

Tim Cook needs a game changer

The oft-rumoured Apple TV set is still nowhere in sight. Talk of an iWatch seems to be the driven by little more than fanboy and fangirl dreams of what Apple could do to improve the Pebble. Meanwhile Google has stolen a march with Glass. It is becoming tech media consensus that Google is now the most innovative company around, some even say Google has the best designers.

All this puts into context the importance of yesterday’s Apple developer conference. Tim Cook needs a game changer, he needs an iPod, iPhone or iPad equivalent. And he needs it yesterday.

So what did we get? We got a very thorough, thoughtful redesign of an operating system. From colour palette to logic, iOS7 at first glance seems a very well designed upgrade. Crucially, it signals a new design direction.

Under the guidance of design-lead Jony Ive, Apple’s software design is becoming as simple as its hardware. We also saw the launch of a completely redesigned Mac Pro, out with the old clunky box and in with a new, much leaner cylinder.

Simplicity is the new watchword. And everyone knows that creating things that are simple to understand and simple to use takes time.

Expectations had clearly become so great that Apple could no longer deliver; no company could. When this happens, brands tend to falter, some brands fail entirely and collapse. Despite the conjecture about their ability to innovate, one thing Apple clearly has not lost is its confidence.

Tim Cook and Jony Ive have seemingly set out a new strategy. Apple is backing away from the tech trend of having products in perpetual beta that are continually updated. The pace of product launches will slow but development will not. Each new product is likely to see a thorough reworking, not just a better camera or faster chip. Yesterday Apple took the first step in resetting our expectations.

This article originally appeared here on the Huffington Post.