It’s almost comical looking back at the coverage ten years ago as Apple geared up to launch their retail efforts. The thing people kept going back to was the flop that was Gateway Country – and a decade on, it’s absolutely comical that people would mention Apple and Gateway in the same breath. But less than five years removed from a stock price of $15, and mere months after the collapse of the dot-com bubble, people were convinced that Apple’s effort at a brick-and-mortar retail presence would be a colossal flop.
Oops.
Mickey Drexler was the ace in the hole – the Gap CEO sat on Apple’s board and was the helping hand behind the retail launch. But for all the other names at Apple who have been credited in their turnaround – Himself, Avie Tevenian, Jonathan Ive, Phil Schiller, Tim Cook – the guy who might just deserve the most credit is Ron Johnson. When he showed up in 2000 – with a Harvard MBA and a recent posting as VP of Merchandising for Target – it was with a mandate to deliver a one-of-a-kind retail experience for Apple. And what we got, instead of Gateway Country, was a line of temples for the Cult of Mac.
The Genius Bar might have been the best part. If you have a problem with your computer, why sit on the phone with somebody halfway around the world telling you to turn it off and on again? Bring it in. If there’s new stuff out there from Apple, why look at a catalog, or take a chance that Sears or Best Buy or CompUSA will actually have one out and working properly? Go by the Apple Store and see it, pick it up, play with it, use it. It seems like the most obvious thing in the world, but there it is, the kernel of the post-Jobs-II Apple philosophy: don’t put your success at the mercy of anyone else. You want people to buy your stuff? Don’t rely on a bunch of big-box retail drones. Go out and build the kind of experience you want people to have.
Ron Johnson probably has the biggest delta of anyone at Apple for ratio of profile-to-importance, but today’s his day. 300 instances of proof, and counting.