Apple Inc. (“Apple”) as a market leader in the technology industry remains appealing to its loyal fan consumers despite the death of Steve Jobs. The fact that Steve Jobs rescued Apple from the verge of collapse has actually made him a spiritual leader of Apple and part of Apple’s product attributes. The return of Jobs to Apple in 1997 marked the successful execution in the company. He stopped licensing program, moved manufacturing to abroad and the most courageous move was to move the products into retails. Despite other competitors’ success in total different business models, Apple was thinking something beyond not just simple sales in a store but the “foot traffic” it can create. Finally, today we are sure that in any of the Apple stores, people are not just coming for buying products but also visit the stores out of curiosity and want to take part in merriment which also draws more people in. In this way, Apple stores are doing something beyond sales but also image, brand, enjoyment, trend, curiosity and accessibility of products etc.
Looking behind the scene, Apple’s success could also be attributable to the strong leadership of Steve Jobs in building a cohesive team with the technicality to reliable designs and quality products, the obsession with simplicity but yet sophisticated featured products. Rather than having prototypes or previews of upcoming products, Apple purposely releases their revolutionary products that have been kept completely secret until they suddenly appear in a “launch show” and then in the stores around the world. All these ingredients contribute to the innovative Apple culture which continuously creating surprise and desire to the passionate Apple fans.
Obviously, Apple is not just the business of computer but also business of changing people’s habits, ways of thinking and lifestyle too. When we recall our memories of using our cell phones in the old days, there were arguments that it is ridiculous to use such a small monitor in our hands to do internet surfing as an extensive way to use desktop or laptop out of our homes and work places. Nowadays, you will be the minority if you cannot go online with your cell phones. Besides, the whole mobile phone industry has been reformed and it was absolutely attributed to Apple. Other mobile phone manufacturers are following Apple. They are urging to create the devices that can access multimedia, with the benefits of the ease of utilization and the interaction with other platforms. You can simply run your company now by just one phone on hands with all jobs’ done which in the past they have to be done in the office. That’s the way of lifestyle changing.
If Apple is coming to run a football club, Apple will not just train the players for the league like others do. They will absolutely think of something beyond football or to change peoples’ habits. Generally, in football clubs, the core spirits are to getting better performance and to reach higher rank in the league, these must be the “priorities”. But Apple will use football to promote healthy and positive thinking in life. This goal aligns with Apple’s unique “design thinking” which to support individual work and investigate small details in order to make people to like the product. Promoting individual health and positive thinking in life is something about details in any individual. The way of achieving this goal is to recruit soccer team from 6 years old to 60 years old. They will be divided in different groups or different teams with similar age. Then they will be trained to be a true soccer player by elite soccer athletes and put into competition. Through the training, the message of health, positive thinking, courage, coping with difficulties, facing failure, etc. will be promoted. This can achieve certain kind of social responsibility and to make people to love football. On the commercial side, the whole process can also be recorded as a kind of true-man-show for broadcasting in the media. In the show, football club will be getting sponsorship, endorsement and it creates exposure to the public.
Furthermore, learning from Apple’s “secrecy” of success, if Apple were to run a football club in Hong Kong, it might also consider organizing family football fun days to promote family bonds and health consciousness in addition to the normal training provided to the youth. By working against conventional wisdom, the football club could shoulder its social responsibilities not only by providing elite football training to selected youth groups, but also by offering elementary football training opportunities to a larger group of youths with supports of their families around, making football a much more popular sports in the community and at the same time creates precious memorable moments and socially welcomed events for much larger public groups.
With the above, the football club, like Apple, would be able to create and charm a group of football fans who are likely to be its loyal followers in every single football event or community service that the team participates. Ideally, this will help boost up reputation and popularity of the football team, and in turn arouse more interest in football as a sport within the community in Hong Kong.