Tech Companies & The BRAND

This morning during our drive to school, my 14-year old son asked me

"Mama, what is the richest and most profitable company in the world?"

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As usual, I asked him to google it. He did, and the result was, of course, APPLE!

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He then asked, "why are they that profitable?"

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This is when we started a very interesting conversation…

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Apple is a business that revolves around the holy trinity of success and sustainability:

1. A very well designed, well thought BRAND that has clear values, clear character and well communicated core competencies.
2. An innovative and strategic approach to MARKETING and COMMUNICATIONS that is based in transparency, accessibility, amazing design, genius distribution and brilliant diversification pathways.
3. A state of the art CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE, from the moment one starts thinking about purchasing a piece of tech to the purchase experience itself, all the way to the after sales experience. Every step is well thought and most importantly consistent.

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Add to all that Apple delivers the experience with simplicity and ease which is key to their success and it reflects genuinely and positively on the way they train, educate and treat their teams.

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All this is based on one, very important concept. Apple looks at its whole model as a business and not just a tech innovator. Their techies don't run the business, the brand runs the business.

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Unlike Google which is an amazing company, however, tech guides the business and not the Brand.

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With Google, every step of getting used to the platforms, products or solutions is tech-centric. Their lingo is complicated and filled with tech jargon and it's all delivered as a technical manual, which intimidates many people who are not that fluent in tech. Even their products tend to be marketed with a tech twist to it.

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A good example to study, is the Apple Watch and its successful takeover of the smart watches mass market versus how Google totally flopped to upgrade the FitBit when they bought it to reach the Apple Watch Level.

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In short, even in tech, the Brand must always guide the business and not depend on techies or tech innovation solely to deliver business results.

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