IBM: brand as -- only as -- corporate character

Jon Iwata, SVP Marketing and Communications (left)
with Harris Diamond, Chairman and CEO, McCann Worldgroup
at the 2012 Global PR Summit

Jon Iwata, IBM Senior Vice President, Marketing and Communications, narrates a new  2 1/2-minute video, "IBM on Brand."

Jon makes the assertion that IBM has never defined its brand -- and it certainly has never defined its brand by products it has made (otherwise, we would have our minds cluttered up with associations to IBM of things like punch-cards, Selectric typewriters and ThinkPads. Which they don't make anymore. Which are not IBM).

Jon says: "We do't try to manage the IBM brand, we try to manage our character as a business."  If we're not going to define our brand by what we make, what defines us? ... and it comes back to this notion of our corporate character, our belief system, and our purpose and our mission. And what makes us "Us."  If we take care of that, the brand takes care of itself."