"Gay is the new black" – christian proverb

Steve Jobs vs. Mohammed December 26, 2009

I’ve decided to do an objective comparison between these to valuable brands owners. And will pick the most popular products from each one of them. So it will get down to: iPod vs. iSlam.

Contrary to popular belief, I Myself know a great deal about marketing. Let’s face it, I’ve started a viral fad, that turned into a religion, so I think I’m qualified to talk about marketing and PR.

SJ vs. M : 1 – 0 — addressed public
Without any doubt, the public Apple is addressing is always the most educated with high incomes. Whereas iSlam would just not stick to such a population. They have quite distinct markets, and I’d be quite surprised to see followers of both products at the same time.
In summary
SJ market: designers, writers, freelancers, artists – educated people with an soft spot for arts
M market: sheppards, goat-molesters, barbaric tribes, hungry poor people — uneducated people with few if any opportunities to be happy in life (I know that some iSlam followers moved out from the wastelands to civilized places of the planet, where they try to reintroduce slavery and torture, but they adopted iSlam when they fitted the profile I’ve described earlier)

SJ vs. M — 1 – 1 — followers loyalty
Without any doubt this point goes straight to Mohammed. I haven’t heard anybody even joking about an iPod fan killing non-iPod fans, and for an added bonus kill himself in the process. Yet M, in what is one of the most courageous marketing move I’ve heard of, managed to convince his followers to kill themselves. Why do I say it’s courageous?! Well, because it obviously reduces the market. On the other hand this tactic seems to cut from the market share of the competitors as well and creates social proof for others to adopt iSlam. Brilliant.
In summary: iPod fans may promote their products and this is brilliant in terms of marketing (cheap very efficient advertising) but lack the conviction (and the specific instructions in the user’s manual) to kill themselves and others.

SJ vs M — 2 – 1 — market share
Well why!? Surely there are more iSlam followers than iPod followers, right?! Yes, but that’s in term of absolute numbers. We must pay respects to the size of the market, and with that in mind Mohammed has to wash his dirty feet and bow to Steve Jobs because he only has 21% of the market while iPod has roughly 70% of the mp3 players market.
No summary needed.

SJ vs. M — 3 – 1 — innovation
Let’s face it guys, this is a BIG one. In today’s world, everything happens much faster than 1500 or 2000 years ago. I remember walking with Mohammed when I was on his product management advisory board for what turned out to be iSlam, and it took us weeks to cross one desert and spread the word. Marketing campaigns would go for years and they still would be relevant to the public. Now, Mohammed, unlike Me is not the son of God and can’t really reincarnate at will, so that might be an excuse for bad management, but I think the executive board of iSlam Intl. should get together and start putting their foot down on the innovation gas.
iPods on the other side, as we all know, come out with new and improved (with more features than ever) versions of iPod once or twice a year.

SJ vs. M — 3 – 2 — easiness of adoption (smoothness)
Is it easier to be an iPod owner than an iSlam owner? Not really. Given the fact that a great majority of the worlds populations earns 200$ to 500$ a YEAR, it’s easier to get iSlam (for you and your entire family (good Christmas present by the way)) than it is to buy the new iPod Touch with 16Gb of SSD or something like that. We actually touched on this market size on an earlier topic.

SJ vs. M — 4 – 2 — brand ethics
Again, there is no debate with this one. While SJ might have the secret disease (meaning he won’t tell us in advance almost anything about new versions of iPod) what he says in the end about iPods, might not be said under oath, but it’s not that far from the truth either. Sure every once in a while we see a change in statements, but nothing major.
In the other camp, mr. Mohammed says nothing even close to reality, NOT EVEN CLOSE folks. He talks about fictional super natural powers, tells lie after lie after lie, and while some are just opinions that can’t be verified others are opinions that CAN be verified and turn out to be false. And against all the scientific evidence and direct observation no one from the company changes it’s statement, in fact they stick to their original position, and it pains me to say this, the followers don’t seem to fucking mind.
Can you imagine something like that from iPod?! Can you imagine SJ saying that the iPod can play whatever songs you want, when you want them for free without you even having to download them. Can you imagine him saying that he has a direct line just for you and he will implement whatever feature you want? Can you imagine him saying that after your iPod inevitably dies (I know mine did) even if it’s from your own fault you get back from SJ personally 3 times the money you spent on his product? AND STILL people not gathering up with torches in public squares and demanding his decapitation, maybe take him into international waters so no law would be broken?! That really goes to prove the very first point in this debate.

Alright, that’s it for now folks, until next time
pray to Me,
JC