Have a look at that article.
It’s not that long ago really is it, and yet the fortunes of Apple are beyond comprehension.
Probably even beyond what Steve Jobs imagined … though I doubt, if he was alive, he would admit that.
But while the iMac was much more successful than the journalist suggested it would be … its greatest achievements were re-introducing Apple to the world, positioning them as a real alternative to Microsoft and creating a platform for the brand and products to keep rising.
Now it would be easy to laugh at how wrong the journalist was with their article, but the reality is most people in the industry at that time thought that about Apple.
However the reason had less to do with the launch of the iMac and more about the recent history of the brand.
The choices.
The decisions.
The products.
But in doing that, they highlighted four of the great mistakes so many still make:
1. Immediately skeptical of anyone trying to do something new.
2. Believed the standard for success had been set by the market leader.
3. Evaluated products against current audience needs, not future audience needs.
4. Forgot how much truly great marketing can make people give a shit.
I say this because our industry often operates like this journalist.
Basing our point of view on ‘facts’ that reflect what has happened rather than what is going to happen.
Now I get why … what we do costs a lot of money and has a lot of implications and so clients rightfully want to minimise their exposure to risk as much as they can.
But despite this focus on certainty, we still see missteps and failures every single day, largely down to us – and clients – evaluating everything by the same 3 mistakes the journalist did towards iMac back in 1998.
This is not to suggest we should ignore what clients need.
Nor is it that we should disregard costs.
It is simply a reminder that if we only judge/plan/justify/execute through the lens of the rear-view mirror, the only thing we can be certain of is we will be going in the opposite direction to culture and success.