He’s known as the Ronald McDonald of Apple by industry bods. Steve Jobs, Apple’s enigmatic boss and co-founder, made his long awaited public return on Tuesday, following a six-month break recovering from a liver transplant. His appearance on stage at last week’s new product launch provoked rapturous applause and a standing ovation from those present. Away from the clamour, however, we should not forget the nasty Apple truth that has been exposed by Jobs’ recent ill health; over-reliance.

There exists a fusion between Apple’s brand and its co-founder. Steve Jobs is now an inherent part of the software company’s appeal. It has been his ideas, his innovation, and his vision that have driven the company forward since its inception in 1976. The question his recent health scare posed, therefore, was how would Apple cope without him? The immediate response was not encouraging; the morning Jobs announced his planned six-month break Apple stocks fell a whopping 4.8%.

Ultimately, Apple will outlast Steve Jobs. The spreading of power that will inevitably follow in the next decade, Microsoft style, will help ensure this happens. What is so interesting about this case in point, however, is its relevance to the world of branding. There are a host of examples where the individual behind a business has become central to its brand image. Richard Branson, popping up everywhere from James Bond films to in flight adverts to promote Virgin, and Dyson, whose recent ads simply feature designer James Dyson talking to the camera, are two that spring to mind. Here the business brand’s core values have been so heavily personified that it’s hard to imagine success without each inspired individual.

There appears to be a rising trend in willingness to employ this ‘maker marketing’. Perhaps it is an offshoot of the emerging ‘Age of Celebrity’, where being known takes priority above all else. Or maybe it’s a reflection of the post-Blair British political scene, where the appeal of a leader is increasingly more important to voters than the policies they hold. Whatever the cause, we are at a stage where Reggae-Reggae Sauce can woo the Dragons Den and take the supermarkets by storm not for its taste per se but thanks to the saleability of its guitar-strumming Jamaican creator Levi Roots. If the Steve Jobs episode highlights anything then it is the importance of widening a brand’s appeal beyond this one-man marketing if it is to achieve long term success.

Spotify announced success yesterday in launching their first application for Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch.

For those who don’t know, Spotify is a service allowing its users to stream any song ever recorded over the internet and play them on an easy to use platform. Users can create and save their own playlists – all you need is an internet connection. The service operates on three levels:

Basic, which allows users to stream music for free with an advertising break every seven minutes.

Daily, allowing users to pay a £0.99 fee for a day of uninterrupted music.

Premium, a cost of £9.99 per month for completely uninterrupted streaming of any song you fancy at any time.

Obviously this kind of service provides the likes of Apple with direct competition for its own music purchase platform iTunes. So why is it then that Apple have seemingly put their bottom line at risk in such an avoidable way?

One answer is that they probably haven’t. The decision from Apple to only allow Spotify to create an application accessible by its Premium users will undoubtedly work against the applications popularity. This is because Spotify application users will effectively be paying £10 per month to simply rent music, in no ownable form. At least with iTunes the sense of ownership is retained by the user.

By allowing Spotify to create such an application on their own terms Apple have avoided coming across as a monopolising industry giant, thus not damaging the brands reputation. Remember, not long ago Apple themselves were the challenger brand revolting against the PC – so they clearly know the rules to this game very well! By giving with one hand and taking away with the other Apple have protected both brand credibility and their bottom line, an often difficult task.

Apple’s recent quarterly results made interesting reading…

They sold 2.22 million Macs, 3.79 million iPhones and 11 million iPods. What interested me most however was the relative size of these figures and the likely share of the respective markets that they represent.

Despite the huge impact, widespread respect and undoubted appeal of both the iPhone and Macs they are both very minor players in their markets.

The iPod is the “pear” to these “apples” with a much larger share of its marketplace and much higher unit sales. Unfortunately for Apple it also seems to have the lowest profit margins. Analysts have estimated that the iPhone is Apple’s most profitable product with a gross margin of about 43 percent, compared with estimates of 35 percent for the Mac and 25 percent for the iPod.

Looking to explain some of this difference it may be the lower profit margin means the relative price premium you pay for an iPod versus other MP3 plyers is smalller than the premiums for iPhones and Macs. However a key difference for me is that the iPod isn’t just the product but part of a vetically integrated offer linking almost seamlessly with iTunes. It is this link with content, a link which other hi-tech manufacturers like Sony recognise, that adds to the appeal of the product and ultimately its performance in the  marketplace.