Coca-Cola Loses Fizz To Microsoft

Kinlan writes: "This article at the BBC mentions that while Coca-Cola still has the most valuable brand name, Microsoft is a close second. Another interesting thing is how many other tech stocks are increasing their brand values, even with the recent slump in tech stocks." You know, when you're dragging a corporation's name around through the news and the court systems, it's free advertising. I wonder how this would have compared with an 'O.J. Simpson' brand a few years back.

Comments

'Free Advertising' Not what it's cracked up to be

[webmaven]

'I don't care what you write about me, just spell my name right.'

This sort of attitude may have worked once, but these days, there's a big difference between brand awareness and brand trust.

While Microsoft may be getting more 'brandwidth' as a result of all the news coverage, they are going to find it harder and harder to atract and retain top talent. They are probably running into problems of that sort already.

While it is probably better to be despised than to be unknown, Microsoft was hardly unknown. and it's getting to be more despised as time goes by.

Consumers are becoming more savvy, and usually don't let you pull the same trick on them twice.

Microsoft is running out of people to fool.
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Coca Cola reminds me of the Gap.

[KFury]

The Gap, which used to imply 'the generation gap' now plays of the 'sociological gap.' Folks in hicksville flock to the Gap because they think it's what all the cool urbanites wear. Cityfolk like the gap because (aside from the 'tech-vest debacle') in general it typifies a laid-back, more rural feel.

Coca-Cola gets its brand recognition by reaching into every crevice (figurativly) and not letting any child in an impoverished nation grow to the age of 6 without recognizing the logo. What's more, since we first-worlders are so saturated by the logo, Coca-Cola resorts to showing us impoverished third-world children experiencing Coke for the first time, so that we can get that otherwise unattainable vicarious thrill of our first Coke.

I wonder if Microsoft will adopt this strategy. A hotmail linkup in every village, a 'newbie of the week' using one of Hotmail's many security holes to let users read a Laotian girl's first emails to the world-at-large? Will they have the audacity to brand MicrosoftOps as the "choice of a new generation"?

It can't be long until the commercial where we see the Berber family in their adobe room touch a button, hear the chime of Win2K booting and sigh, for they can feel all their troubles slip away, for now they have a night light...

Kevin Fox

Re:Coke's recogniton among /.ers

[The Salamander]

PS: I'm a Coke guy myself, Pepsi is too weak

So true! Diet Coke seems to be the high-caffine, no calorie drink for me!

Go here to check out caffine content of your favorite drinks!

Never the twain shall meet

[jabber]

There is a very significant difference between Microsoft and Coca-Cola at this point. Coca-Cola still produces it's product, while Microsoft only buys/licenses other, lesser brands, and repackages them as it's own. In this respect, Microsoft is more like Tommy Hilfiger than Coca-Cola.

Coca-Cola was foolish enough several years ago to change a Good Thing. The population unanimously (or as close at this is possible) vetoed the New Coke, and Coca-Cola bent to consumer pressure and reverted to what people wanted. When was the last time Microsoft did anything even remotely in response to customer wishes?

Microsoft has NEVER created an original product. Even if you go back as far as you can, to Bill Gates and Paul Allen coding BASIC for the Altair, what they did was port someone elses product to another machine - this was respectable, but here is where the Innovation(tm) ended. DOS was bought, and each new feature that was added to it was included to squeeze an add-on or competitor out of the market. Windows was clearly a work-alike of MacOS, which itself was a work-alike of Xerox PARC research. NT is really DEC Prism in disguise (Dave Cutler left DEC in disgust when the Prism project was killed, and took the OS design with him), and was supposed to be OS/2 until Gates' ego swelled a bit too much for Big Blue to handle. IE was another DOS-feature-levarage maneuver like EMS/XMS management (QuarterDeck's QUEMM386 died for that one) and DoubleSpace (Stacker anyone?), but this time aimed at Netscape... The only MS product whose history I am unclear on is their development tools, but I know for a fact that Borland did it first and better; and don't even start on Java...

Hilfiger does the same thing. He buys other manufacturer's products, sans labels, and has a facility where they sow on his name. That's all. He's not a designer, he's not an innovator. He's a poseur and a brand-pirate. Just like Gates.

Microsoft tactics are even worse than this. They don't actually buy another product to propagate their brand. They license it. Then they output version 1.0; and they study what they've licensed. By the time version 2.0 is ready, it's a reverse-engineered clone of the original. The license dies and soon after, so does the licensor.

Coca-Cola has brand loyalty, it has a pedigree and a reputation. This means something in the market. Microsoft has Gestapo/strongarm tactics that got it a monopolistic market-share. Microsoft brand 'loyalty' stems not from it's reputation and pedigree but from the fact that all/most available alternatives have been killed, and the brand has been burned into 95% of all PC's sold in the last decade. People choose to drink Coca-Cola; people do not really have a choice about running Microsoft software.

Average people do not have a choice because Linux takes experience to get off the ground, and most people have real work to do instead of reading HOWTO's. Mac software isn't really available to the general public - you have to own a Mac to get to those resources in the first place, and that's a huge leap of faith for the under-informed. The under-informed are that way due to Microsoft's propaganda engine. Not even geeky people have much choice, since we have to talk to other systems, and those use Microsoft-brand file formats.

Well, there it is. Microsoft is a brand by force, they're rustlers and pirates; they're the Jay Gatsby of Silicon Valley, all flash and poise standing on shaky and shady foundations.

"Where do you want to go today?" To the kitchen, to get myself a Coke.