Apple Vision Pro: A Deep Dive into the Future of Tech Marketing

It's been almost a year since Apple launched its mixed-reality headset, Apple Vision Pro. There was a lot of excitement surrounding the launch of the device, including among Apple fans, tech enthusiasts, and the media. It finally hit the market earlier this year and took the social media by storm. Celebrities, influencers, and many other people tried out Apple's new product in almost a decade.

The buzz was high, and Apple sold out of its initial stock of 200K units! With its groundbreaking device that brought in the era of 'spatial computing', Apple managed to capture people's attention despite its hefty price tag. Undoubtedly, the mixed-reality headset stood out in the still early stage, fragmented space of extended reality products.

In blurring the lines between digital and physical, Apple gave me a reason to think about the product from a marketer's perspective. I'll put a link to that episode in the description. 3 months after the product shipped, the buzz is still going. Although it has dissipated, it isn't gone yet. The marketing prowess of Apple is well known and widely respected in business and marketing circles. That got me thinking. What about breaking down how Apple marketed this? Even though it's futuristic, people still bought it because it's relevant today. Despite being so expensive! Let's explore and learn from the masters themselves...

What makes Apple Vision Pro standout?

Time and time again, Apple has shown the world that to make people buy something, it has to have substance. Through captivating and beautifully crafted stories, you can build desire, relatability, and urge to purchase. Steve Jobs's genius lied in not just building desirable products, but also integrating hardware and software. It was his ability to create allure, mysticism, and rapture around everything Apple did. This is now part of the company's DNA and explains its courage to introduce products with unexpected features and personality.

It's not just the design that makes Apple Vision Pro unique. It uses eye tracking, hand gestures, and voice commands to provide immersive content interaction. Using the device, you can turn any room into a virtual theater with stunning visuals, expansive screens, and immersive spatial audio for movie watching, presentations, and gaming. With Vision Pro, Apple introduced a new video format that captures spatial dimension, so users can relive experiences in 3D. Besides entertainment, it can be used for everyday tasks like watching TV, browsing personal videos, and even holding meetings with FaceTime, blending the virtual and real worlds seamlessly.

Who does Apple seems to be targeting to buy the product?

It has all these features and an amazing design language that makes it a viable product. The question is, to whom? Is anybody going to buy something so out there that it needs special circumstances to work? Yes, it works with the iPhone, Mac, iPad, Apple TV, Apple Watch, and App Store that make up the Apple ecosystem. It can create a mixed-reality environment that does all the things other Apple devices do without compromising on their usefulness.

Looks like Apple is casting a wider net instead of carpet bombing. From Apple's launch event and social media videos, the target audience appears to fall into 4 categories:

• early adopters who want a sneak peek at the future of augmented/virtual reality;

• people with disposable income who like cutting-edge tech;

• for professionals who want a portable office or a home theater; and

• developers who are keen on creating innovative AR/VR apps that unlock Vision Pro's full potential.

How is Apple positioning Vision Pro to lure the consumers?

Virtual reality headsets have been around for a while. Meta and Microsoft already have similar products. Besides, this isn't the first time Apple has tried to disrupt the market. In order for this strategy to work, the positioning has to be sharp enough to create whitespace for the product. Vision Pro's positioning seems to be based largely on 3 pillars:

• Unlike traditional VR headsets, Vision Pro doesn't remove you from the real world. It's there to enhance it with digital elements, while still keeping a connection to the real world.

• Prioritizing individual productivity and personalised entertainment for single-person use cases. Social experiences seem to be reserved for future versions. Since most of the existing VR headsets revolve around gaming, Apple has deliberately underplayed the gaming aspect of the individual experience.

• Apple chose spatial computing as its key pillar for promoting its mixed-reality headset. Apple has been very vocal about Vision Pro being a natural extension of existing computing experiences, leveraging familiar user interfaces and integrating seamlessly with the Apple ecosystem. This has also helped avoid the unknown territory of 'metaverse' that Meta has been pushing very hard but with very limited success.

What are the future of tech marketing strategies adopted to attract them?

The marketing strategy for launching a futuristic product has also been carefully planned out. Price skimming is Apple's way of getting more profits during the early launch phase, aiming for early adopters and positioning the product as a premium item. It gets enough margin to cover R&D costs and cash flow for the next version. After that, lower cost versions allow for scale and reach. Tesla did the same thing by launching a pricey model first, and then releasing a low-cost model later.

Next, the company is aiming to seamlessly integrate with the Apple ecosystem, which it's known for. Users already invested in the ecosystem can consider adopting the new product without worrying about integration.

The Apple events have become the benchmark for product launches. Companies like Google and Samsung have taken page after page from Apple's launch playbook. Even so, Apple keeps coming up with awesome event ideas. A visually stunning launch, colorful livestreams, and immersive 3D environments provided the foundation for showcasing Vision Pro's capabilities.

This leads them to leveraging earned media to promote the product. Apple is known for its detailed, targeted PR and marketing campaigns. Using exclusive access and strategic influencer marketing, it carefully curated media coverage and public appearances.

Preparing customers for the future

A granular approach to bringing a product to market aligns well with the care and attention Apple puts into engineering and designing its products. Rather, it's a necessity. Unthoughtful marketing leaves a lot of money on the table for competitors.

Additionally, Apple's product launches and updates are tightly tied to its long-term strategy. It's no different with Vision Pro. All this marketing isn't just to sell a few units. This is about making people aware of the immediate applications of a futuristic tech product and what emerging tech can bring, and keeping them engaged long enough for them to stay interested.

Apple has left a few subtle messages with customers through Vision Pro marketing:

• Focus on practical applications and single-user experiences could influence how the metaverse evolves, prioritizing utility and integration with the real world.

• Vision Pro paves the way for future iterations that are lighter, more affordable, and indistinguishable from regular glasses, achieving Apple's vision of seamless augmented reality.

• It sets the bar high for future AR/VR devices in terms of design, functionality, user experience, and privacy, pushing the envelope of what's possible.

After thinking about how Apple introduced this unique, futuristic product to the world, I realized that it's not just selling a product that took billions of dollars and many years to develop. The product is selling the future, the tech that'll be a part of it, and how all of that will impact us.

The rush of our everyday lives doesn't leave much time for thinking about the future. Even if we do, it often leaves us with a sense of uncertainty. What struck me about Apple's future of tech marketing approach to Vision Pro was that it left a sense of hope and something to look forward to.

The length to which Apple has gone to launch Vision Pro clearly indicates that it has been very careful about positioning it. In some ways, it seems that Apple is aware of the uncertainty that comes with selling the future, today.