The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google

by Scott Galloway

Brands are shorthand for a set of associations that consumers use for guidance toward the right product. Consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands like Tide and Coke have spent billions and decades building brand via messaging, packaging, store placement, price, and merchandizing efforts. But when shopping habits migrate online, the design and feel of a product matter much less. There is no visual merchandising, no endcaps with carefully displayed products. Voice even further circumvents attributes that brands have spent generations and billions to build. With voice, consumers don’t know the price or see the packaging and are less likely to include the brand in their request. Fewer and fewer searches contain a brand name.94 Consumers are willing to price-compare several brands, and Amazon gives them just that opportunity. The death of brand, at the hand of Amazon, and in particular Alexa, can be foreshadowed in search queries.

Importance of brand-building diminishes as ecommerce and automated price comparison/subscription rise