Apple and My Skinny Jeans, Just A Fad?

• Are Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) executives really concerned about Microsoft’s new red-headed spokesperson for the “I’m A PC” commercial lineup? You know, the girl who drives around town trying to find a computer that suits her for less than $1000 and dishes low blows about Apple? The general consensus around the valley is that indeed they are and for good reason. Microsoft is getting at Apple where it could potentially hurt the most, pushing their products as a Fad. Definition of Fad: A practice or interest followed for a time with exaggerated zeal. Popular fads from the 90’s: Wide leg jeans, Mortal Kombat, Tamagotchi, Pogs, Hacky Sack.
• This could finally be Microsoft’s first key to success in their war against Mac, having 18-25 year olds site Apple’s computer lineup as expensive and seemingly ‘too cool’ for them, while buying a PC gets them exactly what they want for an affordable price. I am a pretty big Apple fan (i.e I use their products, but don’t stand in line for them), but this is the first Microsoft campaign that might actually hit home with myself and the demographic that they have so desperately been trying to grab attention from for the last 5 years. It’s true that 90% of Mac users are not buying their products because they are in need of the applications or speed. Buying a Mac, whether you like it or not, brings along a sense of ‘coolness’ or merely satisfies the inner ‘fanboy’ that lives inside each of us who own one. By focusing on this ‘too cool’ factor, Microsoft may be able to push the idea of Apple products as being a Fad. They just might be right. Everyone has always known someone that has owned an Apple computer through their life, but never considered jumping on board with that ‘other’ operating system. I jumped on board with Apple for the first time in 2006 when I bought an ‘iBook’. My roomate at the time, a hipster, had been using a Mac for most of his life and scoffed at me when I walked in the door with it, as if I was stepping into a circle of people I had no place being. Right around 2006, Apple notebooks caught on fire in the college world. Since then, walking into any college classroom will have you blinded by luminous Apple logos that could keep a dark classroom lit up.
• It just so happens, I jumped on board with another fad in 2006, when I bought my first pair of skinny jeans. Yeah, I knew it was a fad, but something about paying triple the price for a pair of jeans didn’t matter so much as the ‘cool’ factor once you were walking around with them on.  Cough cough, check out the image below:

• Apple knows that it is riding a wave of inelastic pricing associated with the fad. Definition Inelastic: Demand for a product can be said to be very inelastic if consumers will pay almost any price for the product. Looking at the chart above, it’s hard to disagree that Apple is not selling their products at Fad prices, completely ignoring market averages, yet continuing to have record earnings and gaining significant market share in the notebook and phone market.
• Now lets fastforward to 2009. Am I still wearing my skinny jeans? Yes I am, but I have switched from the expensive designer type to a similar model at a significantly more affordable price range. Am I still using my Mac? Yes, but I have tried a couple different times to leave. I’ve been searching for the perfect netbook, and already gone through a couple of them in an attempt to find the right one. Industry friends of mine have ditched their Mac, and moved onto an Asus. My hipster friends who mavened the concept of using a Mac to me (and skinny jeans) are no longer using them and are ready to chuck their iPhone once they can hack the HTC Magic (they’ve also ditched their jeans for chords, shit). It just so happens March 2009 is the time when Microsoft brings the ‘too cool’ for a Mac concept to the masses with Lauren. So what’s in store for Apple? Given the price points people paid to jump into the fad, it will take a little longer than most Fads to run it’s course and fade away. But am I crazy to think Apple is on course to have it’s own economic reset, one started by the hipsters, and not by the banks? I think not.

Tagged as: Apple, fad, jeans, skinny