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This week I’ve been reflecting on the power of brand equity and how much perceptual weight it carries. Our stories cover companies with varying degrees of brand equity. On this week’s Brief we cover: Netflix incorporating short-form content from publishers, OpenAI is in murky waters with Apple, and Google labels ads that were made or edited with AI.
One of these companies far outshines the others (and almost every company in the world) in terms of lasting brand equity, and that is Apple. Let’s call a spade a spade: Apple has been absolutely horrendous in terms of AI. New Siri aside, it’s been over a decade of substandard AI software, convoluted messaging and plans, and what feels like directionless strategy and rollouts. Yet OpenAI is desperately trying to steal Apple’s magic. Apple’s smart glasses, which literally don’t exist, have all the major spatial computing companies (Meta, Snapchat, Google) in a holding pattern. 100 years of the most prestigious and technical Swiss watchmaking industry is now a distant number 2 to the relatively ugly-but-useful Apple Watch.
How does a company that’s terrible at AI, behind in spatial computing, and undergoing a CEO-transition still carry so much weight and attention from both the public and its competitors? I’m not sure I have the answer, other than pointing to the lasting brand equity Apple has built. In a capitalist-maxxing world (which Apple is also strategically sound at), they carry a lot of discipline in their vision. They quietly will acquire (preserving the master brand), design everything themselves, and maintain really high standards. The more the AI Arms Race accelerates between OpenAI, Anthropic, and Gemini, the more I respect a company that mostly sits on the sidelines with their bank account and reputation virtually untouched.
Today, tomorrow, and for the next 100 years, brand equity will matter. How you build, preserve, and protect it is where the magic happens.