For many brands, the effort of achieving “momentum” can prove the biggest and most elusive hurdle to successful growth. For those lucky few that achieve it, the challenge of maintaining it is equally demanding.
So with this said, I would like to add my congratulations to Apple. I know, I know. The branding world doesn’t need another sycophantic article about Steve Jobs and his crew. And you are right, but reading some latest facts and figures about the company’s success has pushed me over the edge.
– 3 million iPads sold since the launch
– 1 million new iPhones sold on the first day
What on earth is happening here – these things are not cheap!! And more specifically, what is happening to the new, responsible, thoughtful and discriminating consumer that we have all been reading about? Well the answer appears to be that the new rules of consumption simply do not apply to purchasers of Apple product.
And at the same time that Apple are delighting their consuming public, the performance of the company continues to amaze and bewilder their competitors. Increasingly the onlookers are busy scratching their heads in disbelief while at the same time rationalizing why their own products are superior and also predicting the end of the Apple dominance any day soon.
But the truth is that there are no signs that the Apple momentum is slowing, if anything just the opposite which raises another point. Namely that this is no “one-shot wonder”. This streak has lasted for more than five years, a remarkable performance in a sector that is renowned for dynamic change and where you are only as good as your last success. Motorola showed us the way forward with Razr but had nothing to follow. Zune’s shortcomings continue to illustrate the dominance of the Apple brand in the mp3 segment and while Android is making inroads into the Apple ‘orchard’, it is my opinion that it will take more than one product and more than one generation of that product to genuinely threaten the current leader of the pack.
I guess that all I am saying is while the world seems very quick to criticize brand failure, as in the case of Goldman Sachs, BP and Toyota, we should be equally quick to acknowledge that Apple has set a standard of sustained performance that is, I believe, unprecedented. Certainly in the three decades or so that I have been involved in the branding business, I cannot remember another brand that has built such extraordinary excitement, loyalty and financial performance.
Simon Williams
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