The recent ranking of brands around the globe has seen Apple maintaining its position as the number one brand in the world. The Apple ecosystem expanded exponentially throughout 2015, along with its customer-centric focus, as reflected by a 43 percent rise in brand value this year.
The number two position goes to Google. Nearly two decades after hitting the Web, Google has certainly diversified from its original role as an Internet search engine. In addition to products like Android, Gmail, and Maps, which have enhanced its core business, the company has taken moonshots to heart, investing in driverless cars, high-speed Internet, and home gadgets—to name just a few.
In the early decades, Apple’s brand was very much that of a challenger, bringing easy to use computers to consumers and small businesses in a way that as focused on the needs, individuality, and style of ordinary people, rather than the conformity and technical mandates of big business.
Apple’s brand position has evolved, but today’s brand is still consistent with these early promises.
Apple’s core competence remains delivering exceptional customer experience through superb user interfaces. The company’s product strategy is based around this, with the iPhone (with it’s touch screen “gestures” that are re-used on the iPad), Mac, iCloud, iTunes, and the Apps Store all playing key roles. THE distinctive feature of each of Apple Pay and Apple Watch remains the customer experience of an elegant user interface and simplicity of use.
Starting with a major re-vitalisation of the Apple brand when the iPod was launched in 2001, Apple worked hard to harmonize and migrate its brand and its product strategy closer together, to achieve today’s position.
