‘You’re not Apple’: Mimicking giant brands isn’t strategy, it’s delusion

I wrote my first political speech in 2002. I was 26. The topic was economic policy and, in hindsight, I have no idea what made anyone think I was qualified to help chart the future of the UK economy. But the Conservative Party was five years deep into the bleak midwinter of opposition, and the talent cupboard was bare.

Speechwriting, I learned quickly, is the hunt for a great line. One that cuts through the noise, echoes beyond the room, and maybe, just maybe, lodges itself in the culture. Most lines don’t, instead dying quietly in media inboxes and Reuters newsfeeds. But every so often, someone names reality so cleanly it sticks. And then it spreads.

Two weeks ago in Davos, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered one of those lines. Talking candidly about the state of the global economic order and the resurgence of great power politics, he called on world leaders to recognise that “We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition”.

In a sea of Davos-speak, all smooth plutocrat euphemisms and tech-enabled optimism, Carney brought brilliant clarity. The global rules-based order? Broken. The polite fiction of a level playing field? Dead. Quoting Václav Havel’s “living within a lie”, he argued that middle powers like Canada, Australia and Britain need to stop pretending and start acting like what they are: strategically squeezed states in an age of great power dominance.

The author Matt Jones

Carney’s prescription for middle powers was equally precise. Don’t chase superpower status. Don’t expect a seat at the top table. Instead build coalitions, invest in internal strength, be patient and play your own game. And, as I listened, something clicked. Not as a former speechwriter, but as a brand strategist.

What if most brands are living within a similar lie? What if Apple, Amazon, Coca-Cola, LVMH and the other global hegemons of branding, are playing by rules the rest of us will never be able to access? What if their scale, capital, leverage and cultural gravity allow them to shape their markets to the point where mimicking them isn’t strategy, it’s delusion?

It’s a question we faced firsthand when we started Four Pillars Gin in 2013. We could have told ourselves we were building the next Tanqueray or Hendrick’s. We could have postured like a future Diageo. That would’ve been easy (and helpful when trying to win over investors). And it would have been very, very dumb.

Instead, by equal parts accident and instinct, we took the middle-power path. We partnered relentlessly: not just with distributors and retailers, but with chefs, artists, airlines, skincare brands and croissant geniuses. We built internal strength and self-reliance: a brand home, vibrant direct channels and a hyper-engaged social community. We wrote our own playbook: ignoring the on-trade-first orthodoxy of the spirits category, staying focused on winning at home in Australia, and leading with DTC success. And we raised enough money early to allow us to be patient when scale didn’t show up overnight.

We started as a minnow, and we never sought to become a great power. A middle power business with a great brand and disproportionate influence at home — and in the global craft spirits community — was all we aspired to be, and exactly what we achieved.

By contrast, too many brands chase the mirage of great power scale. They try to create the aesthetics of dominance without understanding its economics. They write business plans for fantasy companies running on borrowed money and dwindling time.

Aesop interior: “These companies were not born great”

And even when their great power mimicry appears to work for a while, it traps them in cycles of discounting, dependency and delusion, and leaves them with over-inflated ambitions, frustrated investors and exhausted, anxious teams.

Most brands will never achieve great power status. And, perhaps worse, too many draw delusional hope from the few brands that have gone from challenger to hegemon in our business lifetimes. Think Red Bull, Tesla, Aesop or Netflix.

These companies weren’t born great. And they didn’t climb by copying the powerful. They became great by seeing something no one else saw, and building towards it with ruthless originality. And crucially, they started by playing a disruptive middle-power game, consolidating their own internal brand power and creating the leverage and credibility they would need to navigate their own paths to the top table.

Before Aesop became a global icon, it started with cult products, beautiful interiors and obsessive coherence. Before Netflix made blockbuster content, it beat Blockbuster by mailing DVDs and building data and customer intimacy. Tesla focused on mastering battery technology and refused to subscribe to traditional car dealership models. Red Bull disrupted soft drinks by acting as equal parts content creator and adrenaline factory.

Big-power cosplay isn’t just unhelpful, it’s strategically lazy. The real opportunity, for nations and brands, sits with those willing to accept their constraints as middle powers and turn them into advantage. You’re not Apple. And you don’t need to be. But you do need a strategy grounded in who you are, how you can build coalitions, how you can create leverage, and how patient you’re prepared to be.

In a world of brand superpowers, where the dice are loaded and the house almost always wins, the brands that thrive will be the ones brave enough to stop living the lie and smart enough to play their own middle power game.

Matt Jones has an eclectic background, combining economics, politics, brand experience and gin. To read more, see the biographical note at the end of his first column for Mumbrella on why SXSW Sydney failed.