MANCINI HugoIBC 3rd yearEB3991

Dissertation

The effects of a good marketing strategy on a company.

Study of Apple Inc.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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”.

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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 :

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- 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 :

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- 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.

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- 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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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

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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..).

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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

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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.

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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.

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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].

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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.

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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 :

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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 :

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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 :

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90%

3%7%

Wich one of the following devices would you be the most interested in

iPad Samsung Galaxy Tab Amazon Kindle

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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

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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.

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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)

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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)

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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.

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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

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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.

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References

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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

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