BrandDigital | BrandSimple: The Blog

The only recent news story that may have gotten more press coverage than the release of Apple’s iPhone is the release of Paris Hilton. I’m not here to weigh in on that particular item. Rather, I would like to toss a brand question into the ring regarding the iPhone. What happens when one brand bets its future on the performance of another? By choosing AT&T as its exclusive carrier for the next two years Apple may be doing just that. Apple selected AT&T in part because the company allowed it to change everything people hated about cell phones. The problem is, one of the biggest things people hate about cell phones is still in AT&T’s arena: Its network and its reputation for inconsistent signals. While AT&T is working hard on next generation technology to remedy this, the brand’s reputation relative to call quality could have a negative effect on Apple’s grade-A reputation as a brand. The incredibly positive aura associated with the Apple brand could be diminished if the calling experience with the iPhone is less than Apple grade.

Now, generally, no one blames problems with their cell phone on the hardware. If there’s a problem, they assume it’s the carrier. This may mitigate any fallout to the Apple brand should the call experience with the iPhone be less than wonderful. While any brand partnership is a challenge, what remains to be seen in this case is whether Apple loyalists will be any less loyal if every aspect of the iPhone experience doesn’t live up to their expectations. Apple is, in a way, releasing the product with one hand tied behind its back.

And although the iPhone can be used one-handed, the brand may need both to defend itself against any less than stellar performance on its partner’s part. Stay tuned.

Terry Semel’s departure as CEO of Yahoo didn’t surprise me, just as it didn’t surprise anyone on Wall Street, in Silicon Valley, or any number of blogging technorati. The company’s profits have been slipping for awhile now, in good part as a result of its slipping efforts to narrow Google’s lead as a search engine. Replacing Mr. Semel with Jerry Yang, one of Yahoo’s co-founders, offers some hope that passion can be restored to the brand. After all, who better than the inventor of the brand to recharge its status? But, from a pure brand POV, it’s going to take a lot more than just a change at the top to restore Yahoo’s place as a leading brand in the online world. For this, Yahoo is going to have to figure out what it wants to stand for –not who is standing at its helm. In other words, it needs to identity a single, simple something that consumers can understand and that they associate with the Yahoo brand –and the Yahoo brand only.

In BrandSimple, I write about how the best brands in the world have always been built on simple, relevantly different ideas that drive everything they do and that set them apart from the competition. As a brand, especially a brand trying to make it in a digitally- accelerated universe, you simply can’t succeed by being a little bit good at everything. Right now, Yahoo’s a little bit good at search, a little bit good at content, at attracting advertisers, at email, at convenience. As of this week, they’re even a little bit good at providing coverage of college athletics, as indicated by the purchase of Rivals.com. It’s a little bit too late for this. To succeed, the company is going to have to establish one thing to be really, really good at – better than any other brand – and ensure we care. Unfortunately, I don’t think the answer is in going back to the future. Mr. Yang and his team may have the best of intentions and I wish them luck. But, from a pure brander’s POV, my prediction is that they company will be sold to a brand that knows what it stands for and why buying Yahoo will add to its standing.