How Apple STOLE $10B from Facebook with ONE POP-UP

When Apple joins a category, it’s not there to take part, it’s there to take over.

In 2019, Tim Cook wrote a piece for Time explaining the narrative for Apple’s next conquering:

Digital ad networks.

With the headline “You deserve online privacy,” he framed it in a way to make the rest of big tech as corporations greedy for personal data.

“The trail disappears before you even know there is a trail. Right now, all of these secondary markets for your information exist in a shadow economy that’s largely unchecked—out of sight of consumers, regulators and lawmakers.” - Tim Cook

Take a look at the size of each company’s ad business in 2019:

• Apple, $500 million

• Amazon, $13 billion

• Facebook, $69 billion

Apple sees huge upside potential for their ad network, mainly through the App Store.

And the first way to get more market share is to cut the oxygen supply to their competitors.

Marketing the problem

In this point in time, there’s three things you need to know about Apple.

1. Apple wants to grow its service business (ad placements).

2. Apple understands the power of a story.

3. Apple sees a story it can use (privacy).

So they got to work on one of the most effective marketing campaigns in history.

Apple’s main taglines are:

• Privacy. That’s iPhone.

• If privacy matters in your life, it should matter to the phone your life is on.

• What happens on your iPhone, stays on your iPhone

But this is only the beginning.

These ads highlight the changes that need to be happening in tech. Because if your audience doesn’t know they have a problem yet, then why would they care about your solution?

Apple is simply priming their audience to get them thinking about privacy before they even launch.

The power of framing

Apple releases iOS 14.5 in April ‘21 — turning the narrative into a product feature.

When opening a new app, your iPhone asks if you want the app to track you.

Nobody wants Facebook or any other app tracking them (to be honest… who would click yes?).

The result — 95%+ of users ask apps not to track.

The update prevents data sharing between different platforms (i.e. Facebook accessing data from other apps).

Apple made privacy protection their mission to save consumers. Turning Facebook, Google, and Snapchat into villains.

But the way they framed the question when asking about other apps v.s. their own is is the real 300 IQ play here.

Pay attention to the word choice:

Apple asked their users if they wanted to protect their “privacy” from third-party apps, and to opt out of data tracking. But when it benefited Apple, they re-framed it as an option for “personalized ads”.

Apple calls it “privacy” when it’s someone else using your data to advertise to you, and “personalized ads” when it’s them using your data to advertise to you.

That’s the the power of good psychological copywriting and positive framing.

Stock prices do not go BRRR

Since iOS 14.5 was released, the S&P 500 is up 2.8%.

But stock performance of a few companies that were affected?

• META: -40%

• SNAP: -80%

• SHOP: -66%

Apple’s update cut their ability to collect the same data and target those users effectively (the right ad, at the right time, for the right person).

Meta acknowledged the privacy change would decrease 2022 sales by about $10 billion.

And not to mention Tik Tok also taking ad share away.

Customer acquisition costs for those platforms, as well as the businesses running ads on those platforms, greatly rose. According to FeedMob, a tech-driven mobile performance agency, saw an 80% YoY increase in CPM during their analysis on over $100 million in annual spending.

The effects go further down than just big tech.

The Apple ad takeover

As you may have guessed, Apple has grown its ad business big time:

• 2019: <$500M

• 2022: $4B

Crushing Facebook, Snapchat, and 1000’s of small businesses.

But it has even bigger ambitions.

Apple's VP of Advertising, Todd Teresi, said that he wants Apple's ad business to increase from $4B annually to over $10B.

On a long enough timeline, everything we see and use will be part of the apple ecosystem.

So don’t be boring, cut your competition’s fuel supply to have more market share for your own.