Could 7, 2014: Katie Cotton, the fearsome, much-admired head of Apple’s worldwide publicity machine, steps down from her vice chairman publish after 18 years with the corporate.
Throughout her stint at Apple, Cotton labored in lockstep with CEO Steve Jobs and proved instrumental in controlling the corporate’s portrayal within the press. Her departure supplies yet one more reminder that the Jobs period is over at Apple.
Katie Cotton: PR chief was necessary participant in Apple’s success
If you consider profitable partnerships in the course of the Jobs period at Apple, you doubtless consider ex-design chief Jony Ive or present CEO Tim Prepare dinner. Ive labored with Jobs to create a sequence of hit merchandise. Prepare dinner labored with Jobs to verify Apple may manufacture and ship these merchandise in enough portions.
Katie Cotton’s position at Apple outlined the corporate’s id in one other means. Whereas Ive and Prepare dinner labored straight with the merchandise, she managed the best way the world considered Apple.
Earlier than coming to Cupertino, she labored for a PR company known as KillerApp Communications, which dealt with some tasks for Jobs’ NeXT. Whereas Cotton by no means labored on the NeXT account, she did decide up contacts there. When Jobs arrived again in Cupertino in 1996 after Apple acquired Subsequent, Cotton landed a job supply with the corporate.
Her work at Apple outlined the bizarre anti-PR house the corporate cultivated. Nobody can say that Apple is dangerous at PR (that may be ridiculous). Nonetheless, the corporate doesn’t attempt to be significantly good at it, both — a minimum of not within the conventional means.
Loads of PR executives endlessly flatter journalists to attempt to safe favorable protection. Cotton was greater than able to pushing to get the publicity she needed, however her job was additionally about courting solely the protection Apple needed. Like Jobs, she prided herself on saying “no” to way over she mentioned “sure” to. It was a special college of PR, and it labored flawlessly.
How hard-nosed PR helped form Apple
Cotton proved significantly protecting when it got here to Jobs’ well being issues. Her hardline techniques usually served as a supply of humor within the hilariously widespread parody weblog, The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs.
As Cotton as soon as advised journalist Kara Swisher, “I’m not right here to make pals with reporters, I’m right here to place a lightweight on and promote Apple merchandise.” (Swisher’s article about Cotton’s departure from Apple is properly price studying for one thing extra nuanced than the numerous tales denouncing the publicist as a “depraved witch” of Apple.)
When Cotton introduced her retirement, Apple spokesman Steve Dowling described her impression.
“Katie has given her all to this firm for over 18 years,” he wrote. “She has needed to spend time together with her kids for a while now. We’re actually going to overlook her.”
Cotton finally left Apple on the finish of Could 2014. Her departure supposedly marked the beginning of a kinder, gentler period of PR on the firm. Whereas that is arguably true, there’s additionally little question that the PR ethos Cotton instilled at Apple stays. Like Jobs, her affect continues lengthy after she stepped down from her position.
R.I.P. Katie Cotton
Practically a decade after leaving Apple, Katie Cotton died on April 6, 2023, on the age of 57. The New York Occasions’ obituary mentioned Cotton “constructed a tradition of thriller by saying comparatively little, if something, to reporters.”
And tech journalist Walt Mossberg posted a (now-deleted) Twitter thread paying tribute to Cotton and calling her a “formidable determine” in Cupertino.
“Katie brilliantly led the media technique for the historic run of huge merchandise throughout Jobs’s second tenure operating Apple,” he wrote. “She was a key associate to Steve Jobs, who trusted her judgement.”
Apple additionally issued an announcement about Cotton’s demise.
“We’re deeply saddened by Katie’s passing,” the corporate mentioned. “She was a unprecedented individual and he or she made numerous contributions over the course of her two-decade profession at Apple. Our ideas are together with her family members and everybody who had the chance to work together with her.”
