As this story about Apple’s seemingly head-scratching marketing approach shows, if you’re Apple and you want to wipe your feet with new marketing rules, you need a superior product. (And, actually, that applies to everyone.)
But you also need a strategy. In Apple’s case, that means pursuing the right positioning: “cool,” “in-the-know,” “elite.” Take a look at their “I’m a Mac” commercials and contrast the characterizations of “Mac” with “PC”; that’s all you need to know about their strategy.