Building technology brands that transcend technology
Remember:
- In every industry, in every product category, technological advantages come and go
- You build enduring brand value when you show how your technology responds to enduring human needs
Let’s say your engineers are smarter than their engineers. Let’s say your engineers have given your product the best technology in its class. So, building your product’s brand should be easy. All you have to do is promote your technological advantage clearly and consistently, right? Wrong.
Glory that cannot last
The problem with building brands solely on their technological advantages is that technological advantages don’t last. Remember Moore’s Law? It says the number of transistors that can be placed on an integrated circuit doubles every two years. In other words, technology improves exponentially. Sooner or later, their engineers will leapfrog yours.
To complicate matters, companies that produce significant technology innovations tend to be very engineering-driven. In such company cultures, it can be hard to see beyond the engineering. But woe to those who don’t! Brands that peer longingly at reflections of their own technology may, like Narcissus, not even notice that their value in the marketplace is evaporating before their eyes.
What not to do
It’s the railroad case study that everyone learns in business school: When rival technologies (the car, the airplane) came along at the beginning of the 20th century, railroads became suddenly outdated because their self-definition never went beyond their technology. They never realized, until too late, that they were in the transportation business, not the railroad business. As a result, their century-long dominance in transportation quickly vanished.
Technology as a means, not an end
From the Mac Classic® and iMac®, to the iPod® and the iPhone™, Apple® has never been about mere technological features and functions. It’s always been about what the technology enables people to do and feel and be. Apple has been promising the same thing ever since its audacious 1984 Super Bowl commercial: our technology helps liberate your individuality, so you can think and create and enjoy life with greater freedom.
It’s not that Apple doesn’t promote technological features and functions. It does. But those features and functions always serve a deeper human brand promise. It’s a promise worth making—and buying into—because of its humanity, not technology. It’s a promise that has made Apple one of the most successful technology brands in the world.
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