Instagram/video transcript: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZXX3XSBzjR/

Uploader: Entrepreneurship | Business | Startup Culture Posted: 20260609

Caption (from the post)

Steve Jobs believed that most companies misunderstand quality. According to Jobs, customers do not decide a product is high quality because of advertisements, awards, or marketing campaigns. They decide based on their own experience.

He pointed to Japanese manufacturers as an example. Many of them rarely talked about quality in their marketing, yet consumers consistently viewed their products as some of the best in the world.

Why? Because reputation is earned through the product itself.

Jobs argued that a company can spend millions promoting quality, but if the product disappoints customers, that perception won’t last for long. Eventually, reality always wins.

Media: WoodsEnd

Transcript (verbatim machine transcription: faster-whisper `medium`, language `en`, unedited)

It’s funny, the group of people that do not use quality in their marketing are the Japanese. You never see them using quality in their marketing. It’s only the American companies that do. And yet, if you ask people on the street which products have the best reputation for quality, they will tell you the Japanese products. Now why is that? How could that be? The answer is because customers don’t form their opinions on quality from marketing. They don’t form their opinions on quality from who won the Deming Award or who won the Baldrige Award. They form their opinions on quality from their own experience with the products or the services. And so one can spend enormous amounts of money on quality. One can win every quality award there is. And yet if your products don’t live up to it, customers will not keep that opinion for long in their minds. So I think where we have to start is with our products and our services, not with our marketing department.