The Hidden Products of Apple, Tesla and Basecamp

Did you know that Apple, Tesla, and Basecamp all have entire product lines hidden in plain sight?

You know of the iPhone, the Apple Watch, or the new Vision Pro. You’ve seen Tesla Model 3’s, Model Y’s, or maybe a CyberTruck. You’ve probably heard of Basecamp, the popular project management software.

But how about these Apple Products?

• Neural Engine

• StandBy

• Dynamic Island

• Magic Keyboard

• AirDrop

• MagSafe

• ProMotion

• TrueTone

Or these Tesla products?

• Autopilot

• Sentry

• Frunk

• Summon

• Ludacris momde

Or these Basecamp products?

• Card Table

• Hill Charts

• Pings

• Lineup

• Stacks

They’re not products, of course. They’re features.

But they’re named like products. They sound like products. They’re branded like products.

Apple, Tesla, and Basecamp are giving us a masterclass in product marketing.

Can we use this strategy?

My question is: How we can use this strategy in our own products, so that our customers might love our products, just as much as an iPhone user or a driver of a Tesla loves theirs.

They brand their best features as products for a reason. 3 reasons, actually:

1. To promote the benefit.

2. To add continuity.

3. To drive sales.

Promote the benefit

Promoting the benefit of a feature is critical to help customers see why a feature should matter to them. Branding a feature helps with this.

Take the name “MagSafe”, which is how Apple describes their wireless charging feature on iPhones. The benefit is that the phone is safely secured to the charger because its magnetic. Mag-Safe.

Add continuity

How does branding your features add continuity?

Every Apple product that has a screen has a Retina Display. Spatial Audio started as a feature only in Apple’s headphones and now it’s a feature in Apple Vision Pro and even Macbooks.

FaceTime started as the video calling feature and now the camera that’s built into Macbooks is known as the FaceTime Camera.

Everywhere those features show up, their recognizeable brand name is used. If you love the feature on one product, then you’ll want to buy the companion products even more.

Drive sales

Most importantly — how does this drive sales?

Put yourself in the shoes of a person who is considering buying your product. They probably have a specific checklist in mind. These are the features that are most important to them. Once they know that your product checks all those boxes, you’ve sealed the deal.

By giving your key features their own brand names, you can quickly and easily tag those features to show your customer that they’re included in the product they’re about to buy.

Look at any of Apple’s price comparison pages. Like the one comparing iPad models. If I’m shopping for an iPad and the facial recognition feature is important to me, then I see that this one includes “Face ID” wheras the other ones only include “Touch ID”.

Now my decision to buy this particular iPad has been made much easier. Now I’m ready to pull the trigger.

So I’ll turn it over to you. What other products or companies use this strategy to brand their best features? Let me know in the comments on the YouTube video.