Lessons on reputation from the world's most valuable brand
For the best part of a decade, Apple has proactively built a reputation as a leader in data privacy protection.
Apple's relentless focus on its reputation allowed it to identify and respond to shifts in stakeholder perceptions well ahead of other companies. It has successfully leveraged that reputation to break into new markets and increase its financial success.
While Apple has immense resources at its disposal, much smaller companies can learn key lessons about reputation building strategy from the proactive approach taken by Apple over the last seven years in one specific area of its reputation.
2014: Apple eyes privacy
Apple has long been revered for innovation. Much of its success has been attributed to category-creating products such as the iPad, the Apple Watch, and high-performance laptops. Its reputation for innovative, quality products has allowed it to maintain demand at a price premium, relative to its competitors.
Privacy was also a theme that had been important to Steve Jobs and Apple. But it remained in the background as a feature that appealed to a small section of Apple's customer base. They recognised that privacy as a benefit didn't have much resonance outside of tech circles.
But by 2014, data privacy and protection was starting to become a more mainstream concern. High-profile data breaches had grown increasingly common. The Edward Snowden leaks were in the news. Tech-savvy consumers were becoming unhappy with the privacy policies of Google and Facebook who were making billions of dollars by selling users' data to advertisers.
It became clear to Apple that some consumers were forming strong opinions about tech companies not just on the basis of their products, but on how they treated customer data.
Apple saw the opportunity to get ahead of the industry by positioning itself as the tech company that was "good with user data". A new privacy microsite was launched that spelled out how data was used and protected. CEO Tim Cook wrote an open letter to convince customers of the company's superior stand on the topic. His actions were described as "the unofficial launch of an almost decade-long campaign where Apple has positioned itself as a champion of people’s privacy."
2017: The shine starts to wear off
By late 2017, the Apple shine was starting to wear off. Central to Apple's reputation vision as a leader in data privacy was the trust of its customer base. The "Batterygate" issue, where Apple was found to have slowed older iPhones to preserve their battery life, had raised questions about trust and quality. The company's innovative facial recognition technology came under fire for allowing third-party developers access to the face-mapping software. The media weighed in with "Apple is sharing your face with apps," calling it "A new privacy worry."
In 2017, the Corporate Accountability Index gave Apple the lowest score of any US-based company on governance and privacy measures. Apple's public privacy commitments, it concluded, were "not always clearly reflected in the company’s privacy-related policies."
That year, Apple's reputation woes showed in US polling. It suffered the second largest place drop of any US-based company since the Harris Poll began in 1956. Global reputation surveys cited lower scores for Apple in the dimensions of governance and citizenship (that have ethics and privacy as key drivers).
Having held the title of the world's most valuable brand for five years, Apple lost its top spot to Google and saw its brand valuation drop by 27% in 2017's Brand Finance global 500 report.
2019: Apple makes privacy public
By 2019 Apple was struggling with declining iPhone sales. It had experienced a significant drop in revenues and was being criticised for losing its innovative touch.
Although Apple was now making real progress in building privacy controls into its products -- including by processing facial and voice recognition data on the iPhone rather than Apple servers -- not all consumers understood why they should care about privacy.
Apple realised that to successfully leverage the specific reputation it was actively building, it would need it's customer base to recognise the value of privacy.
Apple launched a new TV ad campaign to convince consumers that privacy mattered. The campaign included TV ads and a billboard aimed at raising awareness of the importance of privacy while subtly having a dig at its competitors who were now visibly lagging Apple in their privacy features.
Apple was again criticised for lacking congruence, however. A Washington Post reporter published an experiment that showed "thousands of trackers, mostly in apps, siphoning data" from his iPhone.
Industry commentators lamented that it could be "wishful thinking" for Apple to "take more positive action on its privacy beliefs". It seemed that publicly, Apple's privacy actions were not yet fully aligned with the reputation it was trying to build, and this represented a credibility risk.
2021: Apple gets real on privacy
To its credit, Apple had recognised that to entrench an authentic reputation as the leader in data security and privacy, those features needed to exist at the core of its products. It definitely wasn't enough to 'message' them into existence.
Apple used the Worldwide Developers Conference in 2021 to shore up its privacy credentials. Cook announced genuinely industry-leading privacy features -- limiting the tracking capabilities of digital advertisers and allowing users to completely opt out of tracking on the web.
He used his keynote to "reflect on his company’s reputation for providing the security and privacy that people have come to expect.” Importantly, Apple had now also brought its customers and many of its critics on the journey. Time reported that now "Apple's push for privacy seems to be a more complete approach, down to the way you access the web itself." It was hailed by Forbes as a "stunning new privacy move" and a "game-changer for iPhone users."
Having achieved internal and external alignment, Apple was able to leverage both its reputation for privacy leadership, and its industry-leading privacy features, to boost its financial success.
As CNBC reported, "With its focus on privacy, Apple is leaning on one of its core strengths. Apple’s privacy infrastructure also allows it to expand into big new markets like online payments, identity and health, both from a product and marketing perspective. It is now leveraging its reputation as being "good with data" to break into lucrative new markets.
The 2021 Brand Finance report saw Apple regain its top spot for the first time in five years with an 87% increase in brand value. It remains the world's most valuable brand in 2025, and has only recently been overtaken as the world's most profitable company.
It took time, effort and investment, but Apple successfully built and leveraged a specific reputation for privacy among its key stakeholders, and it remains a core focus today. Doing so has significantly boosted its brand image and value, and made it even more financially successful.
It is important to note that privacy leadership is a specific reputation and not Apple's brand position. Its brand remains firmly anchored in enhancing the lifestyle of its customers through their experience of simplicity, quality, innovation and ease.
What can we learn?
1. Successful companies have an uncompromising reputation focus. This was central to Steve Jobs' vision. Building an enduring company, Jobs said, was both far harder and far more important than making a great product.
2. A company's promises must be backed up with authentic and meaningful action. Failure to align internally with the reputation you are trying to build can damage your brand and reputation.
3. Anticipating shifting stakeholder perceptions puts you ahead of the competition. By the time many companies have recognised a particular reputation driver is important to stakeholders, rival companies can already have it baked in to their products or services.
4. Once you have established an authentic specific reputation around the driver that matters most to your priority stakeholders, you can leverage that position for considerable financial success.
5. In 2025 it is STILL mostly large companies that build their reputations proactively. There's room and time to gain advantange.
Reputation Sherpa is focused on guiding leaders of service-based organisations to use reputation as a strategic tool to achieve and exceed their business goals.
