final dissertation
TRANSCRIPT
MANCINI HugoIBC 3rd yearEB3991
Dissertation
The effects of a good marketing strategy on a company.
Study of Apple Inc.
1
Table of contents
ABASTRACT....................................................................................................................................... 3
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................................ 5
CHAPTER 1 : LITTERATURE REVIEW........................................................................................71.1 INTRODUCTION.............................................................................................................................................71.2 THE NEIL BORDEN’S MARKETING MIX THEORY....................................................................................8
1.2.1 Product................................................................................................................................................... 91.2.2 Price :.................................................................................................................................................... 101.2.3 Place :................................................................................................................................................... 111.2.4 Promotion :........................................................................................................................................ 12
1.3 A 4 P ANALYSIS OF APPLE PRODUCTS..................................................................................................141.3.1 Introduction...................................................................................................................................... 151.3.2 Product................................................................................................................................................ 151.3.3 Price...................................................................................................................................................... 161.3.4 Place :................................................................................................................................................... 161.3.5 Promotion :........................................................................................................................................ 17
CHAPTER 2 : RESEARCH METHODS.........................................................................................172.0 INTRODUCTION..........................................................................................................................................18
2.1 Research questions and research objectives...........................................................................182.2 Research Strategies........................................................................................................................... 192.3. Design of the questionnaire........................................................................................................... 19
CHAPTER 3 : RESULTS................................................................................................................. 223.1 INTRODUCTION :.......................................................................................................................................223.2 RESULTS (DATA)......................................................................................................................................23
3.2.1 First part : General informations.............................................................................................233.2.2 Second part : Apple......................................................................................................................... 243.2.3 Third part : iPad.............................................................................................................................. 31
CHAPTER 4 : DISCUSSION OF RESULTS..................................................................................344.1 FIRST PART : GENERAL INFORMATIONS...............................................................................................344.2 SECOND PART : APPLE.............................................................................................................................354.3 THIRD PART : THE IPAD..........................................................................................................................414.4 CONCLUSION :............................................................................................................................................43
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................... 45
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................... 47
BIBLIOGRAPHIE............................................................................................................................. 48
2
ABASTRACT
This dissertation is a resarch focused on the effects of a good marketing strategy
on a company. These effects have been highlighted through the study of one of
the most successful company of the last decades : Apple.
The literature review chapter presents experts opinions, findings and researches
for the concerned topic. The first part is an overall of the most famous marketing
strategies and the second part of this litterature review is a study of Apple’s
marketing strategy (throught the Porter’s marketing mix). Thereby, we can have
an idea of the company’s strategy, postioning on the market and objectives.
In order to carry out the dissertation, a quantitative research questionnaire has
been used. A twenty questions questionnaire has been posted on the facebook
group ‘’Preston’’, group composed by about a hundred international student
studying in Preston.
The questionnaire has been answered by thirty student from this group and all
the answers analized in the chapter four : discussion of the results.
These results highlights that most of the respondents own at least one Apple
product, they think these products are high quality and expensive products, and
for most of them, the quality of the products worth the high price.
3
Furthermore, the efficiency of Apple’s marketing has been demonstrated as the
survey prooves that respondents think style and brand image are more
important than price when it comes to acquire an Apple product.
4
Introduction
In the most simplist type of trading, there is creation of a product needed by
customers, and these customers buying the products to satisfy their need.
However, as commerce has devellopped to become one of the most, if it is not the
most, important factor of our society, it became way more complicated for
companies to sell their products. Indeed, for most of the people, their basic needs
are satisfied. When people’s basic needs are satisfied, they aspire to some more
complex needs such as self-estime, belongingness need, self realisation . . .
Moreover, nowadays several different products can answer cutomers needs. For
most of the sectors, competition is really high and companies had to devellop a
better way to produce, sell, advertise, communicate : they created strategic
marketing.
Studies tend to support that a good strategy is now one of the most competitive
advantage on competition.
Thereby, it should be possible to study the effects of a marketing stratefy on a
company, no matter how bad or how good this strategy is. Of course, it would be
more interesting to analyze a successful marketing strategy ; this is why I
decided to focus my dissertation on the strategy of Apple.
Indeed, Apple is a really successful company, especially for the last twenty years.
The company has experienced a significant growth in terms of turnover and
popularity in the last decades and experts attribute this growth to an amazing
strategy.
5
The overall aim of this dissertation is to evaluate the quality and the effects of
Apple’s marketing strategy towards customers.
The first chapter of my dissertation : Litterature review, is composed by two
parts. In the first one a reminder of most important marketing strategies and
notions will be made, follow in the second part by a strategic analysis of Apple.
Data research methodology will be explained in the second chapter.
The third chapter shows the results of the data research ; these data will then be
analized and linked to the experts opinions and researches in order to conclude
on these results in the last and fourth chapter.
6
Chapter 1 : Litterature Review
1.1 Introduction
Apple is one of the most succesful companies of the last decade, the brand just
keep growing and growing and Apple’s fans are becoming more and more. Their
products are seen as high quality, ergonomic, fashionable products and all these
qualities seem to justify their high price. However, Apple’s results are due to a
wonderful long-term strategy. Indeed, they must have been looking for the
perfect mix for their products.
In the first part of my litterature, the marketing mix (or 4 P) theory is going to be
explained and in the second part we will see how Apple applicated this theory to
their company, and wich elements of the mix they chose.
1.2 The Neil Borden’s Marketing mix theory
On modern markets, a product or a service can’t be sold for itself, no matter how
good it is. There are several management tools used by companies to improve
sales. The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) defined marketing as “the
management process that identifies, anticipates and satisfies customer
requirements profitably”. This management process highlighted by The
Chartered Institute of Marketing can be detailled throught the “Marketing mix”,
also known as the “4 P”.
7
Even if the marketing mix concept has been introduced in the early fifties (the
term “marketing mix” has been used for the first time by Neil Borden in 1953,
however it was a reformulation of his associate’s ideas : James Culliton), the 4 P
classification has been developped in 1960 by Jerome McCarthy.
As its name suggests, the 4 P theory explain that sales of a product or a service
are related to the balance of four factors, four forces : Product, Price, Place and
Promotion. These four forces can be changed, ajusted by the company to find the
optimal balance between them ; and so on have the best possible chances to
increase sales of the product or service proposed by the company.
To be able to find this perfect balance, it is absolutely essential to have a precise
idea of what each force is and by what it can be changed.
1.2.1 Product
According to Pettigrew and Turgeon – Darmon, a product is “the promise made
by the company to satisfy one or more needs (psychological or physiological) of
the market at any given time”
Ranges (or lines) classify the products of a company. The products of a company
are classified according to the need they are satisfying. These lines can be
analyzed on two aspects :
8
- The dimension of the line :
o Width of the line : Number of needs answered by the
products
o Depth of the line : Number of products answering the
same need.
- The fonctions of the line :
Lines can have different fonctions such as rentability, image, development,
defense, cætera and cætera. It is the fonction attached by the company to each
line. In instance, some ranges of products could have “improve the brand image
and the popularity” as a main objective, even over making profits.
1.2.2 Price :
The price is the only variable of the marketing mix wich costs nothing to the
company. The price is chosen by the company according to three factors : costs
(how much does it cost to produice the product), demand (the demand of this
product on the market), and concurrence (the products proposed by other
companies answering the same needs than ours). In addition to these three
factors, the price policy chosen by the company also influence the price of the
product. Indeed, it exists different price strategies such as :
9
- Penetration pricing1
- Economy pricing2
- Price skimming3
- Product line pricing4
- Prenium pricing5
- And others …
1.2.3 Place :
The third “P” : Place, can also be refered to as the channel or distribution. It is the
way chosen by the company to make the link between manufacturers and final
customers. Companies are free to choose between several channels, from really
short to really long ones.
When you are approaching the question of the distribution, you have to ask
yourself six basic questions :
1 Penetration pricing : Products are sold at lower prices than the market to increase marketshares. Prices usually increase later on.2 Economy pricing : The company is trying to reduice its costs to the minimum in order to sell the product at the lower price possible.3 Price skimming : ”High price and low volumes ; skim the profit from the market ; Suitable for products that have short life cycles or which will face competition at some point in the future (e.g. after a patent runs out)”4 Product line pricing : Price of products are chosen according to the different lines of products proposed by the company.5 Prenium pricing : Prices are voluntary higher than the market prices in order to promote favorable perceptions among the buyer. Buyers can think, based only on the high price of the product, that it has a competitive advantage.
10
- Should I use direct or indirect channels ? (direct distribution means
that there are absolutely no intermediary, the company is selling itself
its products straight to the customers)
- Should I use one channel or several different channels ?
- What is the total length of my channels ? (How long is it for products
to go from the company to the customers, how many intermediaries ?)
- Wich types of intermediary should I choose ?6
- How many intermediaries should be selling my products at each
level ? (Example of a company selling its products in the whole world,
it could be : How many retailers in England ? How many retailers in
China ?)
- Wich intermediaries should I locally avoid ? (To avoid competition
between our retailers)
6 There are four basic types of intermediaries : - Wholesalers : Buy products by packages to producers to sell it to
other retailers- Agents : Sell products for the producer and take commissions on it.- Retailers : Retailers are selling products straight to the customer,
however they are usually proposing other products from other brands.
- Internet : Geographically disperse marker, costs are really low, as are entries barriers.
11
1.2.4 Promotion :
Last but not least, Promotion is the final “P” of Neil Borden’s marketing mix.
Promoting is not about choosing a way of promote, it is about finding the optimal
promotion mix. The Promotion mix is composed by seven elements ; the perfect
balance of these seven elements provides the optimal promotion mix.
The seven elements of the Promotion mix :
1. Personal selling :
Well trained sales persons acting on behalf of the enterprise.
2. Sales promotion :
Sales promotions are all the promotions based on reduced price or offers such as
“Buy one get one free”, money-off (ex : 30% off this product), free accessories
and others. This kind of promotions is frequently used by big distribution (super
and hypermarkets …)
3. Public Relations :
According to the Institute of Public Relations, public relations are “the deliberate,
planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain mutual understanding
12
between an organization and its publics”. Public Relations are very important
because they influence a lot the opinion that people have of a company.
4. Direct Mail :
Using databases, marketers target some potential consumers and create a highly
focused mail to communicate with them.
5. Trade fairs and Exhibitions
This kind of events is a wonderful opportunity for companies to interact with
both consumers and trades. It also is a good occasion to present new products or
services. People are allowed to try new products etc …
6. Advertising
Advertising is made in order to get a feedback from customers. The goal of
advertising is to create awareness, attitutes or purchase behaviour. Companies
are spending a lot of money in advertising. Every media can be used to advertise
(Television, internet, newspappers, posters, radio …)
7. Sponsorship
Sponsorship is used by companies to be associated to events. It can be a music
event (concert), a sport event (Olympic games) or whatever the type of the event
is, customers usually associate a brand to the events they are spnsoring.
13
1.3 A 4 P analysis of Apple products
1.3.1 Introduction
Apple is one of the most popular and fashionable brand of the electronic market.
Over thirty years, they succeeded in building a very strong brand image and
customers see Apple as a very strong brand proposing high quality and
fashionable products. Apple’s customers feel a really strong belonging feeling.
Apple’s customers are part of an implicit community and usualy act like proper
salespeople to non-Apple customers. They are usually really proud of being part
of this thriving company that Apple is.
How did Apple achieve such an objective ? One of the main reasons is an
impressive mastery of the marketing mix
1.3.2 Product
Apple’s products are known for being high quality and very reliable products.
They also have a very beautiful design and are ergonomic, user friendly.
We can say that Apple’s strategy towards products is to propose to customers
innovating, beautiful and easy to use products. Moreover, they also come with
some new improved versions of their existing products. Thereby, they always
are extending their products lifecycle. This strategy about products is consistent
with Apple’s brand image.
14
We can also analyze Apple’s products lines :
- Width of the line : Apple’s products are basically answering to 5
needs : mp3 players (iPod), fix computers (iMac), portable computers
(Macbook), phone (iPhone) and finally hybrid tablets (iPad).
- Depth of the range : Apple propose several products for most of its
lines, you usually can choose products by color, performances,
characteristics and even personalise it to make it suit you.
1.3.3 Price
The price of every Apple’s products (computers, mp3 players …) is more
expensive than the market price, and pricies are almost the same in every
countries where its products are sold in. This high price guarantees to the
customer that he is buying a high quality, luxury product. As I already said in my
first part, there are different price strategies, Apple’s strategy is called “Prenium
pricing”. It totally agrees Apple’s product and brand image politics.
1.3.4 Place :
Apple is using several different channels, some really short and some a little bit
longer. They don’t have a lot of retailers, and only a few intermediaries. A big
part of Apple’s sales are made on the iternet via their website. The number of
retailers for Apple is different for each lines of products. In instance, Apple’s
15
computers are only sold in Apple Stores (only a few in each area), or in chosen
retailers. However, iPods are way easier to find, you can find them in most of
hypermarkets, music stores.
1.3.5 Promotion :
Apple is using several way to promote their products. Their strategy is
innovative, because they are using some unusual way to promote.
First of all, they are spending a lot of money in advertising, their advertising are
usually really simple, showing aspects, innovations and competitive advantages
of the products. But even if Apple’s advertising is pretty efficient, the real
promotion of their products is done way before their official launch.
Every year, Apple’s charismatic chairman Steve Jobs is hosting the famous
“Keynote”. This is an exhibition of Apple’s new products, softwares,
improvments cætera and cætera. This event is watched all over the Internet and
a huge amount of articles are written all over the web. Steve Jobs’ orator skills
make the Keynote really interesting and convincing. The reaction of the
internauts way before the launch of Apple’s products has a huge effect on sales.
Another type of promotion used by Apple is called product placement. It consists
in giving some money to films or series to make actors use the brand’s products
in the movie or serie (In the famous serie “Dexter”, the main character is using
Macbook, iPhone etc..).
16
Chapter 2 : Research Methods
2.0 Introduction
In order to evaluate the efficiency of Apple’s marketing strategy, a quantitative
survey has been conducted. The following part describes the methodology,
design and specific procedures used to conduct this dissertation.
2.1 Research questions and research objectives
The objective of the research is to evaluate the efficiency of Apple’s strategy.
Therefor, it is absolutely necessary to have some precise questions we need
answer for. The following questions are the one I needed an answer to and so are
the base of my data enquiry.
Question n°1 : How common Apple products are among consumers ?
Even if we can easily know a companies’ turnover or sales, it is quite hard to
have an idea of how widespread products can be in the customers population.
Answering to this question will give us a precise idea of how big Apple actually
is.
Question n°2 : What is customers’ opinion towards Apple ?
The objective of this question is to get a feedback of Apple’s communication and
advertising. Indeed, researches tend to support the idea that consumers opinion
toward a brand is build from a mix of every information they got of a brand. It
17
can obviously be the products themselves, the consumer’s experience,
advertising, communication or some relatives feedbacks.
Question n°3 : How important do people think Apple’s brand image is ?
Even if it can be subconscious, brand image is a really important deciding factor
in the purchase action. A good brand image can justify high prices such as a bad
brand image can ruin credibility. Throught my questionnaire, I am going to try to
evaluate how important do people think Apple’s brand image is when it comes to
acquire an Apple product.
2.2 Research Strategies
The research being focused on consumer’s perception of Apple’s products,
image, values, the informations would be more relevant using a quantitative
method of research. Indeed, the objective here is not to identify some
characteristics but more to globally evaluate consumers feeling toward the
brand. Therefor, it appears that the use of a questionnaire would be the most
adequate method to get some relevant information for the research.
There are hundreds of way to administrate a questionnaire, I choosed to create
an online questionnaire and publish it on facebook. However, I did publish it in
the facebook group called ‘’Preston’’, this group is composed by about a hundred
international students studying in Preston, most of them at Uclan. Thereby, I
have been able to collect some very heterogene answers.
18
2.3. Design of the questionnaire
The questionnaire has been designed via ‘’Google Spreadsheets’’, one of google’s
applications which permit to create really easily some really nice looking
questionnaires.
You must respect some basic rules when you want to design a questionnaire :
First of all, it has to be absolutely clear. Indeed, you do not want respondents to
be confused and give innapropriate answers.
Secondly, people tend to stay focus on a questionnaire for a short time, thereby
the questionnaire must not be too long.
Finally, it is better to avoid questions that could ‘’offend’’ the respondent.
(exaémples of offending questions : ‘’How much money do you earn ?’’, ‘’What is
your age ?’’)
In order not to be too long, the questionnaire is only twelve questions long, and
to be absolutely clear, the questions are crystal and divided in three different
parts.
The first one manages to acquire some general informations such as age, sex and
nationality. The second one is focused on Apple and is the main part of the
survey (seven questions). Finally, the last one is centered on the iPad and its
competitors.
19
Different types of questions have been used – closed questions7, open questions8
and as well a type of questions called ‘’Grid’’.
A grid is a type of question allowing respondents to rank different options on a
scale you can define as well.
Example of a grid :
The combination of these three types of questions should provite some consistent data relevant for the research.
7 Closed questions are questions in which all possible answers are identified and the respondent is asked to choose one of the answers. University of Bristol (2009), . Available from: http://www.economicsnetwork.ac.uk/handbook/questionnaires/21 [Accessed: April 1, 2011].8 Open questions are questions that allow the respondent to answer in any way they wish. University of Bristol (2009), . Available from: http://www.economicsnetwork.ac.uk/handbook/questionnaires/21 [Accessed: April 1, 2011].
20
Chapter 3 : Results
3.1 Introduction :
In order to acquire some relevant data about my subject, I decided that
the most interesting way would be to create a questionnaire. After a few
researches, I came up woth a twelve questions questionnaire that I submitted via
Facebook on the group ‘’Preston’’. This group is composed by about 100
members, all members are students in Preston and most of them are studying at
UCLAN. Moreover, members of this group are from different nationalities, and all
around the world. This is how I collected thirty answers, which I will be
presenting you in the first part. In a second time, I will analize these data and try
to link them with some experts’ opinions.
21
3.2 Results (Data)
3.2.1 First part : General informations
Question 1 :
53%47%
Are you a man or female ?
Male Female
Queston 2 :
22
33%
67%
How old are you ?
11 -- 20 21 -- 30
Question 3 :
France Germany Spain USA England China Bulgaria0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Wich country are you from ?
Wich country are you from ?
3.2.2 Second part : AppleQuestion 4 :
23
87%
13%
Do you own one or several Apple products ?
Yes No
Question 5 :
63%
37%
Do you feel any feeling of belonging to an Apple community ?
Yes No
Question 6 :
24
Not enth
ousiast
at all
Not rea
lly en
thousia
st
Neutra
l
Enthousia
st
Very en
thousia
st0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
How do you feel about Apple as a brand ?
How do you feel about Apple as a brand ?
Question 7 :
3%
7%
13%
77%
Do you think Apple products are ?Low quality products Normal quality products
Good quality products High quality products
25
Question 8 :
Too low Low Normal High Too High0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
Do you think the price of Apple's products is :
Do you think the price of Apple's products is :
Question 9 :
73%
27%
Do you think the quality of the products justify their prices ?
Yes No
26
Question 10 :
If you had to get an Apple product, what would be your
motivations ? :
27
5
4
3
2
1
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Price
Price
5
4
3
2
1
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
Quality
Quality
28
5
4
3
2
1
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
Ergonomy
Ergonomy
5
4
3
2
1
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
Style
Style
29
5
4
3
2
1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
User friendly
User friendly
5
4
3
2
1
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Access to Apple's applications
Access to Apple's applica-tions
30
5
4
3
2
1
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Apple's brand image
Apple's brand image
3.2.3 Third part : iPad
Question 11 : Do you think the iPad is :
5
4
3
2
1
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
Innovative
Innovative
31
5
4
3
2
1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Useful
Useful
5
4
3
2
1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Expensive
Expensive
Question 12 :
32
90%
3%7%
Wich one of the following devices would you be the most interested in
iPad Samsung Galaxy Tab Amazon Kindle
33
Chapter 4 : Discussion of results
4.1 First Part : General informations
The first part of my survey was about general informations about the
respondant, we can now highlight these caracteristics :
- Question n°1 : 53 % of the respondant are male for 47 % of female, the
results will be quite independant of the sex because there almost are
as much female as male.
- Question n°2 : All the respondants are between 11 and 30 years old
(11-20 : 33% and 21-30 : 67 %). However, when can guess that most
of them are between 18 et 25 (most of the respondents are students,
thereby they probably are part of this age range).
- Question n°3 : People from the following nationalities answered my
questionnaire :
o France
o Germany
o Spain
o China
o U.S.A.
o Bulgaria
34
o England
People from 7 different nationalities and all around the world
answered this survey. We have a good diversity of the respondents,
wich is interesting, unfortunately, I have not been able to see if the
answers were different according to different countries.
4.2 Second Part : Apple
The second part of my questionnaire was focused on Apple in general, as a
brand. After an overview of the results, these are the informations I have been
able to outline :
- Question n°4 : 87 % of the respondents own one or several Apple
products (26 do against only 4 that do not own one). This result gives
a good idea of the popularity of Apple.
- Question n°5 : To the question : « Do you feel any feeling of belonging
to an Apple community ? » , 19 persons said Yes for 11 No : 63 % for
37 %. However, it is obvious that people not owning an Apple product
can’t have any feeling of belonging ; thus we can say that on the 26
people owning an Apple product, 19 feel a feeling of belonging against
5 that do not. Thereby we can say that 76 % of the people owning an
Apple product feel a feeling of belonging to an Apple community.
35
Marketer Mark Gobe9 said about Apple :
"That's what's interesting about this brand. Somewhere they have
created this really humanistic, beyond-business relationship with users
and created a cult-like relationship with their brand. It's a big tribe,
everyone is one of them. You're part of the brand."
(
http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/commentary/cultofmac/2002/
12/56677, accessed on 24th of February 2011)
These results tend to support Mark Gobe’s affirmations. Indeed,
according to these results, 76% of Apple’s consumers feel like they are
part of a community, part of a brand.
- Question n°6 : I tried with the following question to consider the
enthousiast people have toward Apple as a brand using a 5 levels scale
going from ‘’ Not enthousiast at all ‘’ to ‘’Very enthousiast ’’
7% of the respondents confess not being enthousiast toward Apple as
a brand, against 13 % which are Neutral, 27% of Enthousiastic people
and 53 % of Very enthousiastic persons.
9 Mark Gobe : author of Emotional Branding and principal of d/g worldwide. (http://emotionalbrandingalliance.com/about/marc-gobe/ , Accessed on february 20th 2011)
36
Mark Gobe’s opinion seems to be confirmed again by these results. He
said about Apple’s consumers emotions toward Apple : ‘’Apple, of
course, is the archetypal emotional brand. It's not just intimate with its
customers; it is loved”.
(http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/commentary/cultofmac/
2002/12/56677, accessed on 24th of February 2011)
Indeed, more than half of the respondents are really enthousiast about
Apple, this number is really impressive, and it is even more when we
know that an other quarter of the respondents (27%) said being
enthousiast about the brand.
Mark Gobe even talk about an “heartfelt connection with consumers” :
‘’The company has established a "heartfelt connection" with its
customers. This can take several forms, from building trust to
establishing a community around a product. In Apple's case, its products
are designed around people.
Apple's design is people-driven’’
(http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/commentary/cultofmac/
2002/12/56677, accessed on 24th of February 2011)
- Question n°7 : This question concerns Apple’s products themselves. I
asked people what do they think about Apple’s products’ quality using
37
a single choice question with four different possible answers : Low
quality, Normal quality, Good quality and High quality.
77% of the respondents seem to think Apple’s products’ are High
quality products against 13 % which think they are Good quality
products, for 7% they are Normal quality products, and finally, for
only 3% of the respondents (only one of the respondents), Apple’s
products are Low quality products.
We can conclude from that question that people usually have a very
good opinion toward Apple’s products’ no matter if they own one or
not.
- Question n°8 : Apple is pretty well known for having higher prices than
the rest of the market. Indeed, 60 % of the respondents think Apple’s
prices are High. However, only 30% confess that they think Apple’s
prices are Too High. The last 10 % think Apple’s prices are Normal.
These percentages can help us conclude that even if a big majority
agree that the prices are high, people seem to think they are
acceptable.
- Question n°9 : This question is a cross between the one on quality and
the previous one about prices. Indeed, I was wondering if people think
that Apple’s products’ quality is good enough to justify their high
38
prices. According to my answers, 73% do. This number is really
relevant because it prooves that Apple’s prices strategy makes sense :
The firm is obviously positioned on the high quality electronic market
and is selling high quality products at high prices. However, despite
the high prices (higher than the competitors), 73% of respondent
think the quality worth the price. In other words : for a majority of
people, Apple’s products are not too expensive.
- Question n°10 : I then asked what would be the caracteristics people
would be interested in if they had to get an Apple product. For each of
the seven characteristics, respondents were able to put a coefficient
going from 1 to 5. I had the following results :
o Quality : 121
o Style : 119
o Apple’s brand image : 106
o Access to Apple’s applications : 99
o Ergonomy : 96
o User friendly : 94
o Price : 74
39
According to these results, we can classify the most important
characteristics for people wanting to get an Apple product. The most
important for them is quality, secondly the style of the product. Then is
coming Apple’s brand image followed by the access to Apple’s
applications. At the fifth and sixth places : Ergonomy and User friendly.
And last but not least : the price.
It helps us understand people’s motivations when they are getting one
Apple product. Indeed, the price seems to be the less important even if we
already proved that people think Apple products are retailed at high
prices. The importance of the quality is obvious, however, the interesing
part is the importance accorded to the style of the products and to Apple’s
brand image.
The impressive score of Apple’s brand image support this article which
argues : ‘’Ask marketers and advertising experts why Mac users are so loyal,
and they all cite the same reason: Apple's brand.’’
(
http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/commentary/cultofmac/2002/12/
56677, accessed on 24th of February 2011)
Even if the ergonomy and the friendly use of products is still really
important, these characteristics do not seem to be the most important.
We can conclude from this question that people are ready to pay a high
price (ready to pay because price is the less important characteristic for
respondents) to access to three characteristics offered by Apple
products : Quality, Style and the Apple’s brand image.
40
The access to the applications must be one of the decisive characteristics
as well (mostly again competitors, example : if people are esitating
between an iPhone and a Nokia smartphone, they might think : Wth an
iPhone I have access to Apple’s application store) however it is not as
important as the previous three ones.
4.3 Third Part : the iPad
The third and last part of the survey is focused on the iPad.
Question n°11 : The first question about the iPad has for purpose to
outline what people think of the iPad. Respondents were asked if they
think the iPad is Innovative, Useful and finally Expensive. For each of
these three characteristics, respondents had to choose a coefficient
between 1 and 5.
The score for Innovative is 109, Useful got 101 and finally 129 for
Expensive. Even if Innovative and Useful got a good score, people still think
of iPad as a really expensive device. However we prooved earlier than the
41
price is not the most important characteristic Apple’s consumers are
interested in.
Which leads us to the second question about the iPad and the last
question of the survey :
Question n°12 : Wich one of the following devices would you be the most
interested in ?
iPad / Samsung Galaxy Tab / Amazon Kindle.
27 people, or 90 % of the respondents answered iPad, against two
persons for the Samsung Galaxy Tab and only one person for the Amazon
Kindle.
We can interpret this result by saying that even if people think the iPad is
expensive (About twice the price of the Samsung Galaxy Tab and 5 times
the Amazon Kindle), people still think it worth it and 90% of them would
be more interested in buying the iPad than any of the competitors
tablette.
We saw earlier the classification of the interests of people when it comes
to purchase an Apple product. The three most important characteristics
seemed to be Quality, Style and Apple’s brand image.
We can suppose that the iPad answers very well to these three
characteristics because 90 % of the respondents would be inerested in it
42
even if they think that it is very expensive. The quality, the style and the
image gave by the iPad seems to worth its high price for most of the
people.
4.4 Conclusion :
These data collected from a heterogene group of persons support
some experts (such as Mark Gobe or Naomi Klein) which affirm that Apple
owns its success and its fame to its brand image and advertising.
In the early 90’s, Apple was about to go bankrupt. After 20 years of “brand
image” building, this survey helps to estimate the effects of a good
marketing strategy on a company.
In 1990, John Sulley, a marketing executive from Pepsi, left his firm to
market Apple and turn it into the biggest single computer company in the
world
(http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/commentary/cultofmac/2002/12
/56677, Accessed on 24 february 2011).
Seven years later, the same John Sulley declared to the Guardian :
"People talk about technology, but Apple was a marketing company, it was
the marketing company of the decade."
(http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/commentary/cultofmac/
2002/12/56677, Accessed on the 24th of february 2011)
43
This marketing campaign seems to have bring benefits, Apple’s brand
image makes consumers be loyal, be part of the brand, they trust the
brand.
However, the brand image is easy to tarnish, and we can never know how
long Apple’s brand image is going to stay untouchable.
44
Conclusion
Through the four chapters of this dissertation, the importance of a good strategy
has been prooved. Indeed, the results of the survey about Apple support the
experts’ opinions and judgements. In this economic context where competition
rages and people define themselves with what they own and where it becames
extremely difficult to differenciate yourself from the competitors just by the
products themselves ; marketers had to find new ways to beat competition.
Therefor, companies started to work on their images and distinguished
themselves on a more psychological point of view.
Brand image is very hard to build and it needs a lot of work and efforts. One of
the most effective way to construct a brand image is communication and
advertising. The charisma of the brand leader also is extremely important.
However, as the Apple case prooves it, if you can manage creating a good brand
image and a real ‘’community” of consumers, sharing values and interests for the
brand, a huge positive impact can be noticed for the company, interpreted by
sales and popularity improvement.
Despite, no matter how good the brand image you built is, brand image always is
really unstable. Indeed, it can go really fast to see a brand image deteriorates
itself. Consumers are really hard to satisfy, and the better image they have of a
brand, the more difficult it is not to disappoint them. However, as the success of
the iPad prooves, Apple seems to be on the good way to keep its brand image as
good as it already is, or even better. This last decade they succeed in building this
45
amazingly strong relationship with consumers and they seem to be willing to
improve it even more.
To conclude, we can say that this strategy has born fruits : In the last quarter of
2010 and for the first time ever, Apple surpasses its lifetime competitor
Microsoft and reaches its turnover record : 20,34 billion dollars in three months.
46
References
J.N. Kapferer, (2007), Les Marques, capital de l'entreprise : Créer et développer des marques fortes, Paris, Eyrolles.
R.P. Heude, (2005), Guide de la communication pour l'entreprise, Paris, Maxima.
http://www.cafedelabourse.com/archive/article/strategie-de-marque-dapple-secret-du-succes/#
http://emotionalbrandingalliance.com/about/marc-gobe/
http://www.mac4ever.com/news/57447/apple_marque_enregistrant_la_plus_forte_croissance_en_2010/
http://www.marketing.thus.ch/loader.php?page=Piton-III
http://www.marketingteacher.com/lesson-store/lesson-marketing-mix.html
http://www.pcinpact.com/actu/news/42733-Sondage-Apple-avant-gardiste-Microsoft.htm
http://www.social-brand-value.com/2010/07/19/brand-image-apple/
http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/commentary/cultofmac/2002/12/56677
47
Bibliographie
Cross, F. B. (2005), Interntional Marketing Strategy, 5th edition, FT Prentice Hall, England.
Heude, R. P. & (2005), Guide de la communication pour l'entreprise, Maxima, Paris.
Kapferer, J. N. (2007), Les Marques, capital de l'entreprise : Créer et développer des marques fortes, Eyrolles, Paris
Moon, M. & D. Millison, (2000), Firebrands : Building Brand Loyalty in the Internet Age, Osbborne/MCGraw-Hill, Berkeley
Upshaw, L. B. (1995), Building Brand Identity : A strategy for Success in a hostile Marketplace, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York
Wheelen T.L. & J.D. Hunger, (1993), Cases in strategic management, 4th edition, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company
http://www.admirabledesign.com/Apple-tout-pige
http://www.brandchannel.com/features_effect.asp?pf_id=472
http://www.bianews.com/viewnews-16959.html
http://www.cafedelabourse.com/archive/article/strategie-de-marque-dapple-secret-du-succes/#
http://emotionalbrandingalliance.com/about/marc-gobe/
http://www.infoworks1.com/pdfs/Brand_Identity.pdf
http://www.mac4ever.com/news/57447/apple_marque_enregistrant_la_plus_forte_croissance_en_2010/
http://www.marketing.thus.ch/loader.php?page=Piton-III
http://www.marketingminds.com.au/branding/apple_branding_strategy.html
http://www.marketingteacher.com/lesson-store/lesson-marketing-mix.html
48
http://www.medste.gd.cn/mag/ArticleShow.asp?ArticleID=232804
http://newyork.backpage.com/Free/apple-ipad-brand-new-free/12143694
http://www.pcinpact.com/actu/news/42733-Sondage-Apple-avant-gardiste-Microsoft.htm
http://www.social-brand-value.com/2010/07/19/brand-image-apple/
http://www.slideshare.net/taquilla/marketing-management-by-philip-kotler-719-slides
http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/commentary/cultofmac/2002/12/56677
49