Trade Different
Apple is gonna offer a trade-in promotion. It started it a few years ago but now it’s gonna open it to non-Apple smartphones. I am all for recycling when possible, so this is a great news. Still I think this is a pretty unexpected move. I read it as an acknowledgment of competitors. Apple once pushed the “Think Different” campaign. For twenty years they not so implicitly claimed:
- We are on a different level
- We know there are competitors out there but we pretend they don’t exist (unless they are Microsoft and they come with a bag of cash).
- We don’t compete, because we are on a different level.
The mantra was repetitive and circular. Clearly it was a successful strategy, because nowadays Apple is a money printing machine. They are not desperate. The fact that Apple has tons of money doesn’t mean that they don’t wanna make more. The trade-in is a good way to grow a loyal audience.
It’s just funny that when Blackberry and Microsoft ran a similar promotion in the past they both looked desperate.