Promises, Promises – Living Up to the Brand Promise

A brand promise is what a company claims to be and what it pledges to deliver to its target customers and audience. When this aligns a company can build a strong brand with immense brand cachet. When the company or product doesn’t live up to the expectation or what it claims to be there is a brand disconnect and brand confusion; this negatively impacts the customer experience, weakens the brand position and hurts the bottom line.

When a company delivers on its brand promise it is a beautiful thing. The company can enjoy great success and receive industry acclaim – reaching Interbrand’s vaunted top 100 list. Apple has done this. The company has risen to the top of Interbrand’s list and is viewed as the world’s most valued brand. Will Apple start to slip?

Apple has built of reputation of delivering awesome and beautiful looking products that are easy to used and high-quality. However, now there are beginning to be chinks in the quality of Apple’s products. The most recent bending issues with theiPhone 6 Plus. Also, there was the questionable purchase of Beats headphones with its mediocre sound quality. Will these begin to erode Apple’s quality brand promise? Yes. The company is already losing market share in the mobile smartphone space; according to a IDC report in 2013 Apple had 15.3% market share, an almost 3.5% decline from the previous year. The latest snafu won’t help matters.

Images courtesy of Myles Suer, retrieved from:http://www.enterprisecioforum.com/en/blogs/mylessuer/real-value-it-may-just-be-brand-promise