Marketing Lessons from Steve Jobs

I’ve been on a Steve Jobs kick, mainlining “Founders” podcasts by David Senra. Sharp Pen is all about the idea that the CEO is the chief evangelist. In the era of social, that’s never been more compelling or easier to implement. But great founders have run this playbook for generations.

The best founders don’t look down on marketing. They don’t see it as a tactical add-on after product and finance have done the strategic work. They view the story as a key part of building the product itself.

Further, they don’t view marketing as “storytelling” in the spin sense — weaving a false narrative. They see it as message delivery. Get your message in front of customers. Make it clear, differentiated, and urgent. That’s how you attract attention, build trust, and drive growth.

Here are five takes from Jobs that illustrate that mindset.

1. “Good PR educates people; that’s all it is. You can’t con people in this business.”

A lot of founders dislike PR because they see it as spin. That’s the wrong frame.

PR is simple: help customers understand what you do, how you’re different, and why they need you now. You’re educating. People can’t buy from you if they don’t know what you do or how you can help.

2. “The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller. The storyteller sets the vision, values, and agenda of an entire generation that is to come.”

At its best, founder-led marketing does more than educate the buyer. It redefines their standards for the category.

This is especially relevant in adtech right now. AI is redrawing the map. A consistent, charismatic founder can get advertisers to reassess what to expect from a DSP, not just insert themselves into the category. 

AI has handed you the generational opportunity to redefine your company and category. Founder-led marketing is a key part of meeting the moment.

3. Upon coming back to Apple, I realized we had a zillion and one products. After a few weeks, I couldn’t even figure out why our customers should use one product over another. If I couldn’t figure it out, how could the customer?

You might think this is a product lesson. But the same logic applies to marketing.

Companies often make marketing too complicated because they’re too close to the product. Customers don’t care about every nuance. Too much complexity confuses them.

Good marketing simplifies. You get to be known for one thing, maybe two. Pick wisely and repeat it until it sticks.

4. Apple has one of the best brands in the world. You could spend billions of dollars building a brand worse than Apple’s. What is Apple? It’s people who think outside the box. They want to do something with a computer greater than a job.

The strongest brands link product to customer. That only works if the product is focused and clearly defined.

Consider the adtech classic “Beeswax is for control freaks.” A highly customizable DSP for control-freak advertisers.

If you don’t have clarity on what’s different about your product and who it is for, you can’t build a powerful, differentiated brand.

5. My dream is that every person in the world will have an Apple computer. To do that, we’ve got to be a great marketing company.

Jobs was product-obsessed. But his second focus was advertising. And Apple poured a vast amount of time, money, and energy into marketing its world-class products.

Marketing exists to get the product in front of more people, clarify its value, show how it’s different, create urgency, and build trust.

None of that is soft. None of it is optional. If you’re a CEO, you can’t build a great company without playing a role in marketing.

Jobs did. So should you.