Armed or unarmed? Publish photos or don’t publish? Extra judicial execution or justifed act of ‘national self defence’? How much evidence do we need to see before we stop doubting?
This week we have seen – very starkly – just how important credibility is, and how very hard it is to regain it once it is lost. That we doubt is the only thing beyond doubt.
Put simply: we don’t believe everything we are told. In business, as consumers, in global terrorism, in politics. And the more the story gets altered the less we believe. Saying something is true really does not make it true.
“we really are trying to lend to small business”
“none of us knew about the phone hacking”
“we are beyond petroleum”
Trust is born out of credibility and capability. If I believe your intent, and I believe you have the capability to deliver on that intent then I will trust you. Capability without credibility is worthless.
The straight down the line school of strategy says that most business growth is about leveraging capability. I’m pretty sure that’s wrong now. Brands like Apple, Tata, Tesco, Google, Virgin all show that if you can build a bond of trust, if you can build credibility with customers you can enter almost any category you like – whether you have the capability or not. If Apple made a refrigerator tomorrow it would be a hit.
You can buy or build capability. And smart businesses the world over are beginning to hook up with others in order to collaborate, in order to access capability they don’t have.
But you can’t buy credibility at any price. And you certainly can’t kill for it.
Tesco are selling used cars. Many leaders in the car industry used to think that a retailer like Tesco would never do such a thing ‘because they couldn’t live with the margins’. Hmm.
Tesco are going into banking. Have gone into mobile phones. Have gone into financial services, clothing, furniture, electricals, opticians, jewelery and even film production. Is there anything the Tesco brand can’t get into? And is there any brand that shouldn’t see a brand like Tesco as potential competitors?
Brands like Tesco, Google, Apple, Tata, Virgin are defined less by what they do, and more by what they believe. This makes them immensely powerful as it allows them to gatecrash categories which have grown complacent. If you have a trusted brand you can enter – pretty much – whatever category you like.
As Tesco’s move into car retailing shows it is much easier to buy capability than to build credibility. Which means it is harder for bank to become a trusted brand than it is for a trusted brand to become a bank.
The brands that will win in the future will build deep, trusted relationships with customers and expand what they do to fill more of those customer needs. The measure of success is now share of wallet – not market share.
So, with the launch of the new iPhone 4 yesterday the big question shouldn’t be whether we’ll all get one. I’m sure we will.
While the hardware looks typically powerful, beautiful and lustworthy it seems that Apple has a major cloud problem.
Syncing with iTunes has become such an anachronistic idea that I’m surprised that it comes from Apple. If we weren’t already used to it and someone launched this today, there’s no doubt there’d be a lot of head scratching going on.
MobileMe, which is their attempt at cloud services is also pretty much terrible to use.
Ford, in contrast, just launched a pretty amazing cloud service to demonstrate what our lives will increasingly be like. It takes a Google maps address from your phone and connects it with your sat-nav via bluetooth, calculating the optimum route in the cloud. To quote their press release “Printing paper directions from a website is a relic in our digital age.”
Which, in a slightly roundabout way brings me to Microsoft.
Often written off in terms of the mobile market, there is no doubt that Microsoft let Apple, RIM and Android overtake them. As Steve Ballmer said, “we missed a whole cycle” which in technology terms is a huge statement.
However, as this article demonstrates, the new Windows Phone 7 is going to pack a major punch. Enterprise integration through Office and Exchange, the world’s largest gaming network through Xbox Live! and arguably superior entertainment software with Zune (including the definitely superior Zunepass).
The killer app, however, probably won’t be any of these directly. For the first time we’re going to see the whole Microsoft ecosystem in the hands of the consumer on their phone. And not only that, but MIcrosoft are betting on the cloud, and they are betting big.
Cloud services like the one described above from Ford (or the awesome Kin Studio) represent a level of utility we couldn’t have conceptualized even a couple of years ago, and will increasingly define what we look for in a phone.
Just like a computer, the hardware itself will quickly become something which you just don’t need to be any faster, bigger or better. Instead you’ll worry more about how useful it is and how easy it makes your life.
So while I’m sure that Apple will sell boatloads of their new phone, I’m much more interested in how the cloud will change the future.
And if Apple are going to win there, they’ll not just need a sexy new device that lets you make video calls, they’ll need to revolutionize their approach to the cloud.
This short and beautifully shot history or Apple design products shot by San Francisco-based 3D design studio Transparent House reminds me that under Steve Jobs each of Apple’s products were intended to make a statement about the future of the industry.
How we experience each of these products serves to reinforce what we think about the Apple brand. Each new product launch builds new brand equity in the customers mind, reinforcing preference and ultimately sales. This is the role of brand - build loyalty and help people decide.
