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Dear BigBig,
"Whenever you're near me / I hear a symphony." I
hear music everywhere I go. Am I in love? Yep. With
my iPod.
iPods cost more than competing music players, work
only with Apple's proprietary software and online
store, and have had their share of technical and
supply problems. Yet, Apple has sold 68 million
iPods in the past five years -- 39 million of them
within the last year. That's a fantastic brand.
This month we look at brand loyalty -- how companies
create and benefit from great brands, the challenges
of changing a brand, and how you can create it among
your customers and clients.
Cynthia Closkey
President, Big Big
Design
| Sweetening Your Brand |
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It seems easier to create a consumer brand that
evokes love. Examples come easily to mind: Disney.
Starbucks. Any of the colas -- and especially the
diet colas. (Notice that any brand that creates that
kind of great loyalty in some people is also capable
of creating animosity in others.)
But what about business brands? Surely we're all
more rational when it comes to the work day -- we
make decisions for solid reasons, like cost and
quality. Right?
Nope. Think of FedEx, or UPS, or the US Postal
Service -- whichever one you tend to use. Why do you
use it? When did you last compare prices, or run a
test shipment with a different service?
Me, I ship USPS all the time. I haven't checked
prices in a while. I could easily have any of these
guys pick up packages at my location, and instead I
go to the Post Office. They know me there, they
always say 'hi,' and I want them to stay in
business. It's not rational. It's brand loyalty.
What we all have to do, in constantly creating and
sustaining our business brands, is create that kind
of loyalty in our clients. It isn't easy, but anyone
at Apple Computer will tell you it's worth it.
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| The Opera Lady: A Study in Changing a Brand |
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The Pittsburgh Opera has been working to appeal to a
broader audience. People have reacted strongly to
the new marketing efforts -- both positively and
negatively.
It's an interesting example of the challenge of
attracting new customers without losing the old ones.
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| Poll: How do you feel about the iPod brand? |
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Love your iPod? Hate seeing people with those little
white earbuds? Unaffected by it all? Tell us what
you think.
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| Final Thoughts on Brands |
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"What"s a brand? A singular idea or concept that you
own inside the mind of the prospect." - Al Ries
"A brand is a living entity - and it is enriched or
undermined cumulatively over time, the product of a
thousand small gestures" - Michael Eisner, CEO Disney
"Customers must recognize that you stand for
something." - Howard Schultz, Starbucks
A lady, sitting next to Raymond Loewy at dinner,
struck up a conversation.
"Why," she asked, "did you put two Xs in Exxon?"
"Why ask?" he asked.
"Because," she said, "I couldn't help noticing."
"Well," he responded, "that's the answer."
- Alan Fletcher, The Art Of Looking Sideways
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iPod Turns Five |
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This week, the Apple iPod turned five years old.
Actually, I doubt any five-year-old iPod is still
working -- the early versions aren't compatible with
more recent accessories, and the first-released
models were notoriously buggy. Plus there was that
whole unreplaceable dying battery
issue.
And even so, the iPod brand survived, not
only saving Apple Computer but propelling music and
video downloading into an industry.
Read more about the iPod five-year anniversary
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