Paper short abstract:

Apple is a Californian brand known at the global scale and his production is delocalized. In my paper I will show that the spread of Apple products in Italy is a consumption model characterized by some items: central position of design, friendly use, social distinction.

Paper long abstract:

In my paper I will talk about the spread of certain consumption patterns associated with electronic technologies such as computers, smartphones, tablets. In particular, I intend to show the case of Apple technological objects in Italy.

Currently, consumer electronics sector expresses the logic the specialization among global economic spaces. The delocalization of production has created the distinction between places of production and places of consumption.

In this spatial division of labour the activities that require a high-intensity work have moved to areas with a more favorable labor costs; the activities with high capital intensity (research and development, design, advertising , marketing) keep on residing in Europe or Northern America.

In the places of production technological objects are assembled because of various provenance of their components. After the packaging the products arrive to the place of consumption. The general public and the fans do not seem to be particularly aware of the complexity of this industrial process.

The success of the Apple products is due to the specific corporate storytelling, to the beautiful and the innovative design, to the intuitive and playful interface. We could explain the "Think Different" discourse of the advertising campaign in the Nineties as a "distinctive" consumption model. Smartphones and tablets turn into attractive objects like wereable things like clothing or watches.