Apple's D.C. lobbying effort has yet to ripen
Apple is taking a bruising in Washington, and insiders say there's a reason: It's the one place in the world where the company hasn't built its brand. — In the first three months of this year, Google and Microsoft spent a little …
Context & Ripple Effects
A little over a year after Apple enlisted new lobbying help in February 2011, Politico reports the effort has yet to pay off: the company is taking what insiders call a bruising in Washington, the one place its consumer brand carries no weight.
The gap is measurable — Google and Microsoft both outspent Apple on lobbying in the first three months of 2012. The story traveled widely the same day through Neowin, GigaOM, and Business Insider, a sign that the question of whether Apple can convert product cachet into political capital had resonance well beyond the Beltway press.
First-order effects
- Apple enters 2012 policy fights — from privacy questions to its courtroom battles, including the ongoing Oracle litigation — with a thinner Washington footprint than Google or Microsoft, whose larger Q1 2012 spending gives them more staffed channels to shape the debate.
Second-order effects
- Google and Microsoft's established lobbying operations let them frame the issues on which Apple is being scrutinized, forcing Apple either to scale up hiring of firms and in-house lobbyists or keep ceding agenda-setting to rivals.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the lesson for the industry is that consumer-brand strength does not transfer into regulatory capital — as tech companies' policy exposure grows, a permanent Washington operation becomes table stakes rather than an optional expense.
The trend: Tech giants are learning that market success does not buy political influence automatically, pushing lobbying laggards like Apple toward an influence-building race with Google and Microsoft.