Why Apple?

Apple is not a company. It’s a cult. And I bought into the cult :/

Here’s how Apple uses the tactics of cults to get people in:
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Darwin once said that humans are a bunch of animals that require to be in a group for their survival. This is a key insight.

Inherently humans have a need for a sense of belonging. But the modern world has too much focus on individualism.

People now change companies, cities, partners, and friends’ circles too quick nowadays. This means changing familiar social circles too often. This has led to many feeling “that they don’t belong” and people often report feeling isolated.

Cults often use this emotion of people feeling not belonging as a trigger to their advantage. They provide people with a communion, where while feeling belonged they can explore their individualism. Where being different is celebrated.

And similarly, in the marketing world, the idea to “focus on the individual” is pushed heavily. It creates a gap for companies like Apple to fill.

It’s impossible not to notice a palpable sense of community around the Apple brand.

Cafes in cities like Bangalore and Gurugram are filled with people contemplating their work for hours, over a coffee, undisturbed. They are mostly professional writers, freelancers, and journalists. And they all use macs.

There’s a running joke that baristas will deny you your order if you don’t show up with your MacBook in places like Starbucks and Third Wave Coffee.

If you are sitting with a windows PC while everyone around you is using a Mac, you will surely question if you belong in that place. And people also don’t shy away from giving looks to you in these places if you don’t use a Mac.

Whenever someone dabbles into professional life, especially as an individual contributor, there’s a sense of imposter syndrome. “Do I even belong here?”

And when you see everybody using Mac around you, you feel a need to buy one too, in order to feel belonged you know :p

I have been guilty of buying into this phenomenon too. But we can surely learn from this, and harness the gap in people’s need to belong in our marketing campaigns.