Episode #1052 of Thinking With Mitch Joel is now live.

This conversation with Lifang He gets into a tension that many technology companies still misunderstand: brand is not what you add after the product is built. Brand is part of how the product becomes meaningful in the first place. That distinction matters more now than ever. In a world where AI can accelerate development, compress timelines and make competing products look and feel increasingly similar, the question becomes less about who can build something first and more about who can make people care. Functionality may get you noticed. Brand is what creates trust, memory, preference and emotional connection. Lifang has spent more than two decades helping some of the world’s most influential technology companies build products that people do not just use… they love. She is a global brand strategist and product marketing leader who has led branding, go-to-market and growth initiatives for companies including Apple, Amazon and Ring. During her time at Apple’s longtime creative agency, TBWA\Media Arts Lab, she helped shape global iPhone launches, giving her a front-row seat to one of the most successful product introductions in history.

Her new book, Brand Power Built In – How Tech Products Really Win Hearts And Minds, challenges the idea that branding is a layer of marketing applied at the end.

Lifang argues that the strongest technology companies embed brand thinking into product design from the beginning. The product, the story, the education, the customer experience and the emotional promise all have to work together. In this conversation, we talk about category creation, customer adoption, product education and why successful innovation requires both functional excellence and a compelling human story. We also get into the leadership challenge of maintaining a clear product vision, why companies often lose sight of their original “why” through endless trade-offs, and how every customer interaction either strengthens or weakens the brand. Mostly, this is a conversation about differentiation in an age of convergence. As AI makes it easier to build, copy and iterate, technology alone may become a less durable advantage. The companies that win may be the ones that understand brand not as decoration, but as strategy built into the product itself.

Listen to my conversation with Lifang He here: The Power Of Brands With Lifang He – TWMJ #1052.

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