Steve Jobs. What about him and his view on brands inspired me and I try to live by in marketing

The loss of Steve Jobs to the world is a big one. He was creative, inspirational, demanding and changed the way we think about and use technology.


Not only am I an Apple products addict, but have been inspired by and used his approach to brands and what they should be. 


The video below (with text of the speech below) is one clip of him talking to Apple employees that not only shows how a visionary product should think, but constantly stresses something that a brand must be: more than just benefits and features (which need to be good) - but something more. You have to have a belief about the world around you, and then focus on that. It inspires people in and outside the company. It make them feel they are part of something special.

The summary of his message is: We believe that people with passion can change the world for the better. 


The full text of his speech:


“For me, marketing is about values. This is a very complicated world. It’s a very noisy world.


And we’re not going to get a chance to get people to remember much about us. No company is. And so we have to be really clear on what we want them to know about us. 


Our customers want to know “who is apple? What is is that we stand for? Where we fit in this world”. 


And what we are about isn’t about making boxes for people to get their jobs done – although we do that well. We can do that almost better than anyone else can in some cases. 


But Apple’s about something more than that. Apple at the core, it’s core value, is that we believe that people with passion can change the world for the better. That’s what we believe”

This is the amazing TV ad that they made that captures the sentiment of "we believe that people with passion can change the world for the better". Clearly he should be in this ad. As he embodied this more than anything: