Apple Engineers Its Own Downfall with the Macbook Pro Keyboard

Re:Apple Engineers Its Own Downfall with the Macbook Pro Key... by throwaway5752 on Thursday June 28, 2018 @10:59AM (#17417384)

It's generally believed that they diluted their brand by overexpansion into outlet channels. From 2012-2015 their stock got cut by more than half ($80 down to $30) while the broader market was up ~25%.

I would summarize what happened as they stopped being "cool". The (subjectively) not so attractive Coach bags covered with "C" branding were multiple hundreds of dollars and a luxury good. When everyone was wearing one and you could pick up a cheap last season one at the outlet mall, the cachet was gone.

The value of the brand is when you can charge more for something of identical quality, or that people ask for your product by name. Apple's brand is (should be?) golden to them and they should treasure it. It's not based on cosmetics but quality, too.

tl;dr - Coach is still around and recovering and making billions of dollars.

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Re:Apple Engineers Its Own Downfall with the Macbook Pro Key... by janekm on Saturday June 30, 2018 @02:48AM (#17429804)

Thanks for the explanation, I think I had only come across the Coach brand after they expanded aggressively internationally which I presume came after the "cheapening" of the brand, which is no doubt a big part of their turn-around success.

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