Apple inspires. How’s YOUR brand?

Michael Hedges April 3, 2008

Brand logic is back in fashion. Whether your market is buoyant or bombing a powerful brand attracts and holds audience with the right mix of content, message and interaction. Perhaps you should also think about inspiring.

An online survey conducted by UK brand brains brandchannel.com/Interbrand opens the head to brands that inspire and brands with impact. According to the mostly anecdotal survey of 2000 professionals and students worldwide (released March 31) Apple is the most inspiring brand and the one they could not live without.

Apple, at least its logo, figured in a very scientific study of brand images and brain function. Researchers at Duke University (US) and the University of Waterloo (Canada) flashed logos of Apple and Microsoft before the eyes of 340 university students for a nano-second, just below the level of awareness, then asked each to complete a simple test for creativity. The Apple logo, they concluded, stimulates creativity. Microsoft’s logo made those young people think like accountants.

“This is the first clear evidence that subliminal brand exposures can cause people to act in very specific ways,” said University of Waterloo’s Gráinne Fitzsimons, one of the study’s authors.

Being academics, and the study is published this month in the peer-reviewed Journal of Consumer Research, they conducted a different test with the same procedure. The logos of Disney and E! Channel were flashed after which subjects were given a basic test for honesty. After subliminal exposure to the Disney logo subjects behaved more honestly than after exposure to the E! Channel logo. In case it’s escaped your viewing habit the E! Channel is, er, mostly ‘adult.’

The brandchannel.com survey named Microsoft as the company the respondents would most like to argue with. Yet another survey, CoreBrands’ poll of US decision-makers, showed Microsoft falling from 12th most influential US brands in 2004 to 59th. Interbrands’ 1996 survey of brand strength placed Microsoft number one in the world. In 2007 it had slipped to number two. Disney was ranked number nine among all worldwide brands, the top media brand.

The fastest media-related risers in the Interbrand/BusinessWeek best brands report from 2006 to 2007 were, in order of magnitude, Google, Apple and Nokia. On Google’s rise into the top 20 best global brands in only two years, the report says, “Google has managed to maintain a sincere and consistent feel to everything that it does.”

Brandchannel.com’s 2008 Brandjunkie survey named Microsoft and the United States of America the two brands most in need of a remake.

The Virgin brand was named, second to Apple, the brand “you’d most like to have dinner with.” You can draw your own conclusions – or not – but the recent launch of Virgin Radio in Italy was a ratings success. (Read more about it here) Lagardère bought the Virgin brand name for their recent overhaul of Europe 2, ratings results forthcoming.

Several years ago another brand name was popular for radio: KISS. At the time it was arguably the most popular single radio channel brand name, found in about 80 countries. (Read 'Global Kiss of Success' here) Not only do times change, brand images change. In several countries, radio channels using the ‘KISS’ name or some variation have slipped in recent audience surveys.

One cautionary note: it appears Virgin Radio in the UK will be sold by SMG to Absolute Radio at a value of about £60 million, considerably less than the £225 million SMG paid in 2000. It all goes to prove that you can’t build a brand with a name alone.