In the wake of several brand batterings recently, from Toyota's car recall fiasco to BP's corporate image meltdown, (a Green Peace contest demonstrates just how hated the company has become), the role of branding in a radically changed market has been hauled under the spotlight.
As consumers become more connected, time-starved and savvy, and with competition fiercer than ever following the economic slump, it's become increasingly challenging to maintain the attention and loyalty of a market that never sits still. Nowhere is this more evident than in the technology sector.
For a long time, fashion houses, fast food chains and car companies were the big players, with the likes of Coke and Nike ruling the roost when it came to branding power. In recent years, however, this trend has taken a turn, as technology becomes as much part of everyday life as Big Macs and blue jeans. The once small-time start-up has had to adjust its corporate identity with this newfound influence, and now faces a marketplace of rapidly changing values.
Arguably, many tech companies come from a fundamentally different corporate culture; one where ideas, innovation and freedom are driving forces rather than strategy and profits. Then the money comes, and suddenly it's not just another clever algorithm, but a commercial entity with a life of its own. And with great power, comes great marketability.
In April, Google clinched the title of the world's strongest brand for the fourth year in a row, according to research firm Millward Brown Optimor's annual BrandZ Top 100 Report. It clearly illustrates the clout technology now has in the global market - tech companies took the top four spots with number one Google followed by IBM, Apple, and Microsoft. Of the top 10, seven were IT-related companies, and the sector was one of the few business categories to show growth from 2009, rising 6%.
The change has been swift and striking. The report reveals tech brands experienced the sharpest growth in value during the past five years, adding that “if that result is predictable, the dimension of the increases is not”. It cites RIM's BlackBerry brand as an example, which despite not being listed at all five years ago, now ranks at 14th position.
In a post-recession world where consumers feel betrayed by banks and governments, technology, with its associations of progress and personal freedom, hails as the new definer of identity and status. And one company in particular has managed to leverage these qualities to go from almost fading into oblivion in the mid-90s, to the kind of religious following few deities can muster.
Apple of my i
A month after trumping Microsoft in terms of brand power, once-underdog Apple overtook its market cap too, making it the largest technology company in the world. While Microsoft has suffered a series of blunders with Vista and its ill-conceived mobile offering, Apple has been climbing the sales charts with iEverything. In the first three months of its release, the iPad filled three million gleeful hands, and the company's iTunes store hit 10 billion downloaded songs earlier this year.
Perhaps Apple's trump card is its ability to create that particular aura of cool, that veneer of specialness consumers crave as a form of self-expression.
Lezette Engelbrecht, copy editor and journalist, ITWeb
A Frost & Sullivan analyst remarked in a recent Webinar that one difference between Apple and the rest is its tremendous brand power. “With the release of the iPad, you had people queuing in front of stores - that's something which only happens with Apple.” The media hype surrounding the iPad and the iPhone 4 leak saga are a few manifestations of its cult status. Why this particular devotion to a brand that with a single preceding letter turns a gadget into a coveted commodity?
Perhaps Apple's trump card is its ability to create that particular aura of cool, that veneer of specialness consumers crave as a form of self-expression. Apple's brand has always been about innovation, about thinking outside the box, about freedom, which drove marketing like the 1984 Macintosh TV ad and the “Think Different” campaign, with its reference to "The crazy ones. The misfits. The ones who see things differently.”
Its mantra of “power to the people through technology” hit a chord as big business crashed and burned, which is coupled with its success in personalising products - a quality the BrandZ report shows played a key role in building brand value for companies.
As former CEO John Sculley famously told the Guardian in 1997: “People talk about technology, but Apple was a marketing company. It was the marketing company of the decade.”
Power shift
Ironically, another development that's rewriting the marketing rules is being driven by the very innovations and devices tech firms are pushing. The increasing participation of consumers through social media means they've become active agents in forming brands, through promotion and communication which often takes place without a company's knowledge or control. A single tweet can create marketing buzz worth millions while a critical Facebook group can spawn an uncontrollable torrent of negative publicity.
Tech companies are in unique position. They're both better placed to leverage these technologies - which function on the Web and mobile platforms they built their empires on - while at same time being part of this ecosystem, which creates challenges of its own. Google and Facebook, for example, have enabled damaging information about themselves to spread faster than ever, thanks to their own products.
As tech companies become the next generation's industry titans, they face an environment where the consumer is more influential, but also hungrier for identification with brands that speak their language. Increasingly, they're realising the battle doesn't take place on the shop floor, but in the heart and mind of a consumer looking to fill an emotional need. It's that X factor that makes someone, when faced with two products with identical specs, look at one and say, “This is me.”
That sense of commoditised self doesn't always translate into choosing the fastest, most advanced offering. And the new brand kings are finding that while enough time and brainpower can master the trickiest of technologies, hearts and minds are somewhat more difficult terrain to conquer.
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