My philosophy is that:
'you can sell anything, it just a matter of convincing consumers that they need it'
That in my opinion is the hardest part of selling a product and what separates a good product from a runaway product. Sure, some brands can sell products by making them half the price of the rest of the competition (im pointing at you Samsung), but in the end the brands that are able to market their products, convince consumers that their product is the 'thing' and develop a loyal customer base are the ones who will achieve long term success.
If we look in the past and see the brands that were successful, they all had one thing in common: marketing expertise. Sony in the past achieved this and Apple currently is achieving this.
The Walkman became such a success not because it was a great product (no doubt it was though), it was because they showed consumers that it was something that was completely new, something that they needed. Imagine, if Sony hadn't marketed it this way, today we would look back at the Walkman as just another tape player without a record function (in other words an immense fail). Same with the iPod, it could have been just another MP3 player.
Once a brand achieves mainstream success with a certain product, generally they form a loyal customer base. They can ride on this success and release products with the confidence that they can rely on their fans always coming back for more. Generally though, this is the part where companies fall apart, when they reach this point arrogance kicks in and they believe that they can simply ride on the success of their fans and treat them like idiots, offering way too little at a far too high price, they start telling themselves and the world that they are the best, but not nearly enough showing it. That's where Sony lost their balls. Only time will tell whether Apple does the same.
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