Executive Briefing
Is Apple still the world’s hottest brand?
Apple was THE brand of the 2000s and 2010s. What will be the brand of the 2020s? Also: Starbucks tanks.
By Dan Frommer on Tuesday, May 7, 2024 at 6:00 am
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Apple was THE brand of the 2000s and 2010s, as the iPod, iPhone, iPad, Watch, and AirPods all debuted and became massive hits, the Apple Store launched and became the pinnacle of retail, and Apple transformed from a cult underdog to the most valuable company in the world.
It was an amazing business and brand — fueled by great products and marketing — for me to spend the first 15+ years of my career obsessively covering.
Will Apple also remain the hot brand through the 2020s? Totally subjective here, but lately, it’s feeling like probably not.
But if not, what will? Here, almost halfway through the decade, I also can’t name many obvious contenders.
Why not Apple?
It’s not because it’s doing poorly: The company announced last Thursday that it generated $24 billion in profit on $91 billion of sales over the past three months. The Mac I’m typing this on is the best computer I’ve ever owned; the iPhone and broader Apple ecosystem is still by far the best there is; it’s still opening flagship stores — perhaps the second-best expression of the Apple brand, after its devices — around the world.
Today, it’s set to announce new iPads, one of which I will probably insta-order. Millions of people will likely tune in to its virtual event — a feat of its own.
But the momentum from the iPhone revolution, which Apple rode to the top, is over — it’s now just a big, flat business. Here’s the last couple of decades of sales — the recent growth deceleration is real.
Chart of the Day
I don’t think revenue growth rate necessarily correlates to cultural impact and brand heat, but they’re two parts of the same story.
Apple will keep making more new kinds of computers, and some will be big hits. But it will be hard for anything in the pipeline today to have nearly as profound an impact as the iPhone, its related products and services, and the App Store — which have all matured. The Vision Pro isn’t close. The Apple Car is canceled.
Apple is still the biggest brand in the world, and probably the best. But the heat feels like it’s dissipated. When you’re on top for this long, and everyone knows it, it’s no longer as special.
So who’s on the upswing and could possibly become THE brand of the 2020s? I don’t think it’s much use here to look at “top brands” lists like Interbrand’s, where Apple has been consistently ranked no. 1, and the top 100 are all household names, generally dull and not leading any revolutions of their own. No one is going to select Amazon or Nike or even Tesla as this decade’s star brand that everyone is trying to emulate.
A better approach might be to think of the next consumer revolutions — following the smartphone and mobile internet — that could have large impacts on society. And then isolate the brand that is having the most significant, positive cultural and/or financial success — ideally, one that people have some aspirational affinity toward.
That leads me to the democratization of entertainment (TikTok), revolutionary weight loss technology (Ozempic), and AI-as-companion (nothing better than the thing from Her yet). Not obvious winners. Space travel, brain-computer interfaces, and personal in-home robots are still too early to generate iconic brands this decade. Cannabis legalization hasn’t created a new Coca-Cola.
Is “Taylor Swift” simply the brand of the 2020s? (Michael Jordan, you could argue, was the brand of the 90s, or at least in the running.) In one of our most recent Consumer Trends Surveys — conducted by Toluna last November — we asked our panel of more than 3,000 US consumers which celebrities they felt most strongly about. Swift tied with Tom Cruise, among those on our list, for highest awareness — 82%. Among those aware of her, 7% claim to be her biggest fan. (It’s 8% for Cruise, 15%(!) for Tom Hanks, and 7% for Beyoncé.)
Anyway, it’s possible Apple will still win by inertia. (Or maybe it will get its act together and win the AI assistant race, gaining new ground.) Or maybe there just won’t be a brand that becomes as big and as special as Apple’s any time soon?
I welcome your nominations!
Starbucks’ results last week were so unexpectedly bad — a 3% drop in US same-store sales, including a 7% decline in transactions; also an 11% drop in China same-store sales — that longtime CEO Howard Schultz took to LinkedIn to offer current leadership some advice: Get your butts into the field. “The answer does not lie in data, but in the stores,” he posted.
Starbucks’ newish CEO Laxman Narasimhan — who has initiated something called the Triple Shot Reinvention with Two Pumps strategy — placed some of the blame on “a more cautious consumer, particularly with our more occasional customer.”
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Hi, I’m Dan Frommer and this is The New Consumer, a publication about how and why people spend their time and money.
I’m a longtime tech and business journalist, and I’m excited to focus my attention on how technology continues to profoundly change how things are created, experienced, bought, and sold. The New Consumer is supported by your membership — join now to receive my reporting, analysis, and commentary directly in your inbox, via my member-exclusive newsletter. Thanks in advance.