Categories: Articles

iPod Beyond Branding

My niece turns 11 years old today (Happy Birthday Lianna). I just got off the phone with her. I asked her what she wanted. She said “an iPod.” I asked her why. She said, “so I can put all of my songs on it.” I asked her why she didn’t want another kind of digital music player. She didn’t know what I was talking about.
That’s good, deep branding when an 11 year old girl wants an iPod and has no clue what an MP3 player is (nor does she care because it’s not an iPod). Talk about super brands. Talk about turning technology into fashion.
Is your product or service a Kleenex or tissue paper? An iPod or a MP3 player? A Harley or a motorcycle?
If you don’t care, your competition does. If your competition doesn’t care, then the next person to enter into your industry does. My hint to you: care. A lot.

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.