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Brand Management and Apple
February 19, 2007 |
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I’m in the market for a new laptop. Currently I’m sharing with my husband.
I’ve been toying with the idea of getting a Mac (ibook/MacBook) or buying
another PC, most likely a Toshiba. Anyway, a few days ago I stumbled upon
http://www.greenmyapple.org/.
This Greenpeace site has been designed to be a take off of the Apple web
site and is devoted to petitioning Apple to reduce the toxic chemicals in
its products as well as encourage a proper disposal process for old
products. Currently Apple is one of a few technology companies that allow
their obsolete products to be dumped in Asia.
This is an interesting protest to watch. Momentum is building as more and
more sites (mostly bloggers) draw attention to the issue.
This brings up the issue of brand or reputation management. Formerly the
domain of the PR department, brand management is becoming an everyday
reality for search engine marketers. It is especially easy for a brand to be
criticized thanks to the empowering technology of Web 2.0. Product users are
able to make their voices heard by using their blogs or myspace pages.
So as a search engine marketer, what can you do? Well it’s important to
monitor for activity around your branded terms. Searches in popular search
engines and the use of tools such as Google Alerts can alert you to what is
being said about your brand. But what do you do if you find something that
hurts your brand? I guess that depends on what it is. For minor complaints,
it is probably better to deal with them from a customer service point of
view rather than to have those negative comments out there. Perhaps these
complaints should be compiled and the problems addressed? But what about
something really major like Greening My Apple? This involves a complete
review of Apple’s strategy of waste goods disposal and the chemicals it uses
in its production processes. This is not something that can be changed
overnight but it is something that requires months or years to be changed.
So what can be done in the meantime?
The most effective way to divert this potentially disastrous PR problem is
to formally recognize the problem and to lay out your plan to address it.
After the initial Greenpeace Chemical Home database was launched in 02/04
many computer companies, also with hazardous chemicals in their laptops,
committed to a plan to phase out the chemicals. For example, Dell, committed
to a plan to phase out the hazardous chemicals by 2009 and have introduced a
“take-back” policy where obsolete computers are taken back by Dell for
recycling. Dell now scores 7/10, the highest for a laptop manufacturer.
In contrast, Apple scores 2.7/10. They have not recognized the problem and
have not put forward any proposals for improving their record in this area,
even after several meetings and phone calls with Greenpeace to discuss the
issue. In the 2nd version of Guide to Greener Electronics, published 12/06,
Apple is now at the bottom of the guide.
So why isn’t Apple addressing this issue in a more positive way? This is a
hard question to answer. It certainly isn’t that they don’t have the
financial means to address the problem. Perhaps they think consumers just
don’t care? Whatever their reasons, Apple’s lack of response to the issue
will harm their brand reputation in the long run. The Green My Apple
campaign officially launched 09/06. There are already 88,900 listings on a
Google search for “green my apple” (exact match) and 391 blog entries for
the same phrase.
As the momentum builds around this issue, media attention will be drawn to
it. Journalists constantly monitor blog posts for leads on new stories. This
is what happened in the case of the Kryptonite Bike Company who failed to
react to blog posts that demonstrated that their bike locks could actually
be opened with a bic pen. The New York Times got hold of the story and the
issue escalated to such a degree that the company ended up having to replace
$10m of bike locks on a recall (2/3 of their annual sales).
Apple runs a huge risk of alienating its consumer base by not responding to
this issue in a reasonable timeframe with a reasonable solution. The simple
fact that they have been unwilling to commit to anything when their
competitors have all done so, makes them stand out as being uncaring about
the environment and unwilling to address public safety concerns. Are these
the phrases they really want associated with their brand?
While many businesses allocate resources to branding their web sites,
packaging and hard copy marketing materials, they often don't ensure that
their brand is managed at the consumer level. So with the huge growth in Web
2.0, the main lesson to learn for businesses is that, more than ever before,
it has become important to really manage your brand at all levels of
marketing, and that managing means much more than monitoring. |
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 Marina
Garrison
Research PM
Search
Engine Positioning by Searchengineposition
Enquiro Full Service Search Engine
Marketing
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