It’s probably more of an blow to corporate egos than a real metric worth pondering, but as Adweek reports, this year’s Best Global Brands 2013 report by Interbrand places Apple on top, dropping the previous chart leader Coca-Cola to #3.
The conventional not-so-much wisdom in the advertising and marketing industries for the past couple of years has held that Coca-Cola’s content efforts are paying off big time while Apple, which does little to no content or social media marketing, has been flailing around since Steve Jobs’ death. So what’s really the story here?
I drink a lot of Diet Coke and have been a loyal Apple user since 1983, so I’ll likely remain loyal to both brands. But it’s easy to see how Coke seems to be throwing lots of content around and seeing what sticks, while Apple focuses on product improvement. And while Apple hasn’t been able to top its iPod/iPhone/iPad trifecta of the past decade, the brand still has prestige in spades, as the Interbrand survey notes.
There’s no doubt many run-of-the-mill marketers and brand managers sit in conference rooms and say, “We want to be like Coke” or “We want to be like Apple.” And try as they might, they can’t be either. But there are clearly two different paths at work here with Coca-Cola and Apple. Brands looking to the Interbrand survey as any indication of where they should focus would be wise to stick to product innovation, not empty marketing.
