‘Double distinction’: an analysis of consumer participation in Apple branding Chloë Peacock A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the University of Brighton for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy March 2013 Abstract This thesis aimed to understand the relationship between the Apple brand and Apple consumers. It presents an historical semiotic analysis of a selection of the Apple brand from 1978 to 2009 and in-depth interviews with Apple consumers. The interviews were then analysed thematically, looking at the ways participants employed Apple in the construction of identity. The thesis extends theoretical critical approaches to branding with the inclusion of participant interviews. Approaches to branding consider the role of consumers in brand production and ownership, but this thesis moves focus beyond abstraction to interrogate how much of consumer participation is predetermined by the brand. This was achieved by actually examining the ways in which brand consumers articulate the brand. In doing so findings showed that Apple consumers distinguish themselves from non-Apple consumers, but significantly they made a second distinction. For the first distinction, Apple consumers articulated emotional investment, superior aesthetic taste, and feelings of being part of an exclusive community. The second distinction is an articulation of uniqueness within the Apple community. This is achieved through creating a sense of critical distance from consumption via individual lifestyle and taste. Participants legitimised their understanding and relationship with Apple as inimitable. They deployed an individual reflexive strategy, to exert a sense of freedom from what Bourdieu refers to as ‘the game’. Therefore, the thesis represents a response to contemporary branding theory in a rapidly changing consumer landscape. Double distinction highlights the symbolic efforts of the consumer to exert a self-representation associated with a higher condition and position in relation to, but independent of, the brand producer. This redefinition of distinction argues that Apple offers a point of enquiry into the relationship between structure and agency within brand design that may shed light on forms of contemporary consumption. Acknowledgements This is the moment of embarking. All auspicious signs are in place. In the beginning, all things are hopeful. We prepare ourselves to start anew. Though we may be intent on the magnificent journey ahead, all things are contained in the first moment: our optimism, our faith, our resolution, and our innocence. In order to start, we must make a decision. This decision is a commitment to daily self-cultivation. We must make a connection to our inner selves. Outside matters are superfluous. Alone and naked we negotiate all of life’s travails. Therefore we alone must make something of ourselves, transforming ourselves into the instruments for experiencing the deepest spiritual essence of life. Once we make our decision, all things will come to us. Auspicious signs are not a superstition, but a confirmation. They are a response. It is said that if one chooses to pray to a rock with enough devotion, even the rock will come alive. In the same way, once we choose to commit ourselves to spiritual practice, even the mountains and valleys will reverberate to the sound of our purpose. Deng Ming Dao 1992 ~ I begin acknowledgements with Deng Ming Dao, because at the beginning of my PhD all things were hopeful. Since embarking on this journey there have been times when one or more of the qualities of optimism, faith, resolution and innocence abandoned me. I’ve had days where I thought I might just as well give up, but each time I made a decision; I chose to see it as a beginning and to commit myself to the thesis. I now understand that any moment may be a moment of embarking and how the rock comes alive. First I must thank the Apple community for their help and of course the participants who took part in this study. It couldn’t have been done with you, and you were so gracious and generous. Thank you also to Leander Kahney for your help and encouragement very early on, the staff at The Digi Barn museum in California and the library staff who curate the online Apple archives at Stanford University. ii Thank you to my long-suffering supervisors Professor Flis Henwood and Dr Julie Doyle for your help and advice. If I could award a medal for patience you would both win gold. Thank you to Professor Steve Miles for joining my supervision team in 2012. Who knew that unreserved criticism could make us all laugh? I’m enormously grateful to: the branding practitioners I have the privilege of working with outside of the University, particularly at Spannerworks and iCrossing UK for always encouraging me on. Thank you to John Grant for email chats about brands and buying me books. Thank you Dr Sanaz Fallahkhair for your kind friendship and pep talks during a very difficult time in 2010; the Brighton University Student Union advocacy team, and Dr Price at McKeown Psychology Associates for your final-hour motivational talk. You have all been so kind and supportive. My friends and family have been a personal cheerleading squad, especially my friend Ruth and my sister Sally-Anne. Thank you also to Sophie N’Jai for your help with words and being nice. Lastly I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my ‘consigliere’ Marco Azzarone for taking care of me for years: drying my tears, making me laugh, making me fresh gnocchi, putting chocolate through my letter box and even walking my dog. You remind me that people are good. iii Contents Chapters 1. Introduction p.9 2. Brands and branding, a conceptual framing p.15 3. The Apple brand p.49 4. Methods and Methodology p.65 5. A Semiotic Analysis of the Apple brand p.88 6. Steve Jobs: the Personification of Apple p.135 7. Double distinction p.163 8. Conclusions p.195 Bibliography p.211 List of tables Table 1 List of branding examples included in the thesis. p.76 Table 2 Images and applications; denoted and connoted p.99 meaning of The Macintosh machine. Table 3 PC man versus Mac Man clothing p.124 Table 4 PC man versus Mac Man themes p.125 Table 5 Exerts from participant interview (Karl) p.182 illustrating double distinction Table 6 Exerts from participant interview (Marni) p.184 illustrating double distinction iv List of images1 1. Pink iPod mini p.70 2. Isaac Newton logo p.89 3. Rainbow logo p.89 4. Introducing the Apple II kitchen scene p.90 5. Introducing the Apple II man and woman at desks p.94 6. Introducing the Apple II edited copy p.94 7. Steve Jobs and The Macintosh p.95 8. The Macintosh and disc p.95 9. Insanely Great type p.96 10. Event audience p.96 11. Japanese lady graphic p.102 12. Hello I am a Macintosh p.103 13. Picasso logo p.103 14. 1984 female lone runner p.105 15. 1984 Orwellian face on a cinema screen in front of an p.105 audience of drones 16. Mono colour logo p.108 17. Multi coloured iMacs shown in Yum poster p.109 1 All images are original in colour. Images are provided by kind permission from Apple Inc. This thesis is independent and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. The images are actual photographs of the genuine Apple branding and not an artist’s rendering. v 18. Blue iMac shown in Rebirth of Cool poster p.109 19. Jim Henson and Kermit the Frog Think Different poster p.111 20. Photograph of Rosa Parks sat in a bus p.114 21. Photograph of Rosa Parks’ image on the side of a bus p.115 22. Aqua and glass logos p.116 23. Wynton Marsalis playing the trumpet p.117 24. Black dancers p.118 25. Man wearing an iPod silhouetted in white p.119 26. Scientists in space suits looking at an intel chip p.119 27. Female scientist thinking p.120 28. The Apple store 5th Avenue New York p.121 29. PC Man and Mac Man p.122 30. iTouch consumer generated advertisement on YouTube p.128 31. A shrine for Steve Jobs p.156 Appendices vi i. Question guide p.232 ii. Sample interview p.234 iii. Participant biographies p.240 iv. Transcript from Steve Jobs p.243 commencement address 2005 v. Here’s to the crazy ones p.248 vii Declaration I declare that the research contained in this thesis, unless otherwise formally indicated within the text, is the original work of the author. The thesis has not been previously submitted to this or any other university for a degree, and does not incorporate any material already submitted for a degree. Signed Date viii Chapter one Introduction Contemporary authors of academic branding theory have given a great deal of attention to the way brands work as a source of meaning and value, and to how they work as mediums of exchange between brand consumer and producer. In particular, increasing attention has been paid to the role of consumers in the construction of the brand and to the extent to which consumers can be deemed to have agency in the development and maintenance of brand identities. Taken as a whole these recent enquiries into how brands actually work and how the properties of a brand relate to each other might be described as an ontological approach to the study of brands. This thesis, too, explores the ontology of the brand and contributes to this body of literature via a detailed case study of the Apple brand, but significantly this study includes Apple consumers.