MANCINI Hugo IBC 3rd year EB3991

Dissertation

The effects of a good marketing strategy on a company. Study of Apple Inc.

Table of contents

ABASTRACT ........................................................................................................................................ 3 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................. 5 CHAPTER 1 : LITTERATURE REVIEW ........................................................................................ 7 1.1 INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................................... 7 1.2 THE NEIL BORDENS MARKETING MIX THEORY .................................................................................. 7 1.2.1 Product..................................................................................................................................................... 8 1.2.2 Price : ........................................................................................................................................................ 9 1.2.3 Place :......................................................................................................................................................10 1.2.4 Promotion :...........................................................................................................................................12 1.3 A 4 P ANALYSIS OF APPLE PRODUCTS ................................................................................................ 14 1.3.1 Introduction.........................................................................................................................................14 1.3.2 Product...................................................................................................................................................14 1.3.3 Price.........................................................................................................................................................15 1.3.4 Place :......................................................................................................................................................15 1.3.5 Promotion :...........................................................................................................................................16 CHAPTER 2 : RESEARCH METHODS ..........................................................................................17 2.0 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................................... 17 2.1 Research questions and research objectives ............................................................................17 2.2 Research Strategies .............................................................................................................................18 2.3. Design of the questionnaire ............................................................................................................19 CHAPTER 3 : RESULTS ...................................................................................................................21 3.1 INTRODUCTION : .................................................................................................................................... 21 3.2 RESULTS (DATA) ................................................................................................................................... 22 3.2.1 First part : General informations ...............................................................................................22 3.2.2 Second part : Apple...........................................................................................................................23 3.2.3 Third part : iPad ................................................................................................................................30 CHAPTER 4 : DISCUSSION OF RESULTS ...................................................................................33 4.1 FIRST PART : GENERAL INFORMATIONS ............................................................................................ 33 4.2 SECOND PART : APPLE .......................................................................................................................... 34 4.3 THIRD PART : THE IPAD ....................................................................................................................... 40 4.4 CONCLUSION : ......................................................................................................................................... 42 CONCLUSION .....................................................................................................................................44 REFERENCES .....................................................................................................................................46 BIBLIOGRAPHIE ..............................................................................................................................47

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 Apples marketing strategy (throught the Porters marketing mix). Thereby, we can have an idea of the companys 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.

Furthermore, the efficiency of Apples 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.

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 peoples 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.

The overall aim of this dissertation is to evaluate the quality and the effects of Apples 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.

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 Apples 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, Apples 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 Bordens Marketing mix theory

On modern markets, a product or a service cant 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.

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 associates 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 :

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, ctera and ctera. 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 :

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 :

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)

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 Bordens 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. Apples customers feel a really strong belonging feeling. Apples 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 Apples 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 Apples 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 Apples brand image.

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We can also analyze Apples products lines :

Width of the line : Apples 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 Apples 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, Apples strategy is called Prenium pricing. It totally agrees Apples 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 dont have a lot of retailers, and only a few intermediaries. A big part of Apples sales are made on the iternet via their website. The number of retailers for Apple is different for each lines of products. In instance, Apples

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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 Apples advertising is pretty efficient, the real promotion of their products is done way before their official launch. Every year, Apples charismatic chairman Steve Jobs is hosting the famous Keynote. This is an exhibition of Apples new products, softwares, improvments ctera and ctera. 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 Apples 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 brands 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 Apples 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 Apples 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 n1 : 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 n2 : What is customers opinion towards Apple ? The objective of this question is to get a feedback of Apples 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 consumers experience, advertising, communication or some relatives feedbacks.

Question n3 : How important do people think Apples 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 Apples brand image is when it comes to acquire an Apple product.

2.2 Research Strategies The research being focused on consumers perception of Apples 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 googles 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. (examples 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.

Different types of questions have been used closed questions7, open questions8 and as well a type of questions called Grid.

Closed questions are questions in which all possible answers are identified and the respondent is asked to choose one of the answers.
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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.

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 :

Are you a man or female ?

Male Female

47% 53%

Queston 2 :

How old are you ?

11 -- 20 21 -- 30

33%

67%

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Question 3 :

Wich country are you from ?

8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 Wich country are you from ?

3.2.2 Second part : Apple Question 4 :

Do you own one or several Apple products ?

Yes No

13%

87%

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Question 5 :

Do you feel any feeling of belonging to an Apple community ?

Yes No

37%

63%

Question 6 :

18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0

How do you feel about Apple as a brand ?

How do you feel about Apple as a brand ?

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Question 7 :

Do you think Apple products are ?

Low quality products Good quality products 3% 7% 13% Normal quality products High quality products

77%

Question 8 :

Do you think the price of Apple's products is :

70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Too low Low Normal High Too High Do you think the price of Apple's products is :

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Question 9 :

Do you think the quality of the products justify their prices ?

Yes No

27%

73%

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Question 10 :

If you had to get an Apple product, what would be your motivations ? :

Price
1 2 3 4 5 0 2 4 6 8 10 12

Price

Quality
1 2 3 4 5 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16

Quality

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Ergonomy
1 2 3 4 5 0 5 10 15 20 Ergonomy

Style
1 2 3 4 5 0 5 10 15 Style

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User friendly
1 2 3 4 5 0 2 4 6 8 10

User friendly

Access to Apple's applications

1 2 3 4 5 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 Access to Apple's applications

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Apple's brand image

1 2 3 4 5 0 2 4 6 8 10 12

Apple's brand image

3.2.3 Third part : iPad

Question 11 : Do you think the iPad is :

Innovative
1 2 3 4 5 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14

Innovative

30

Useful
1 2 3 4 5 0 2 4 6 8 10

Useful

Expensive
1 2 3 4 5 0 2 4 6 8 10

Expensive

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Question 12 :

Wich one of the following devices would you be the most interested in
iPad Samsung Galaxy Tab 3% Amazon Kindle

7%

90%

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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 n1 : 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 n2 : 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 n3 : 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 n4 : 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 n5 : 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 cant 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 Gobes affirmations. Indeed, according to these results, 76% of Apples consumers feel like they are part of a community, part of a brand.

Question n6 : 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.

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 Gobes opinion seems to be confirmed again by these results. He said about Apples 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 n7 : This question concerns Apples products themselves. I asked people what do they think about Apples 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 Apples 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), Apples products are Low quality products.

We can conclude from that question that people usually have a very good opinion toward Apples products no matter if they own one or not.

Question n8 : Apple is pretty well known for having higher prices than the rest of the market. Indeed, 60 % of the respondents think Apples prices are High. However, only 30% confess that they think Apples prices are Too High. The last 10 % think Apples 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 n9 : This question is a cross between the one on quality and the previous one about prices. Indeed, I was wondering if people think that Apples 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 Apples 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, Apples products are not too expensive.

Question n10 : 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 Apples brand image : 106 o Access to Apples 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 Apples brand image followed by the access to Apples applications. At the fifth and sixth places : Ergonomy and User friendly. And last but not least : the price. It helps us understand peoples 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 Apples brand image. The impressive score of Apples 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 Apples 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 Apples 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 n11 : 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 Apples consumers are interested in.

Which leads us to the second question about the iPad and the last question of the survey :

Question n12 : 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 Apples 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 90s, 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/20 02/12/56677, 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, Apples 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 Apples 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
J.N. Kapferer, (2007), Les Marques, capital de l'entreprise : Crer et dvelopper 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-dapplesecret-du-succes/# http://emotionalbrandingalliance.com/about/marc-gobe/ http://www.mac4ever.com/news/57447/apple_marque_enregistrant_la_plus_fo rte_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-gardisteMicrosoft.htm http://www.social-brand-value.com/2010/07/19/brand-image-apple/ http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/commentary/cultofmac/2002/12/56677

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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 : Crer et dvelopper 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-dapplesecret-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_fo rte_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

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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-gardisteMicrosoft.htm http://www.social-brand-value.com/2010/07/19/brand-image-apple/ http://www.slideshare.net/taquilla/marketing-management-by-philip-kotler719-slides http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/commentary/cultofmac/2002/12/56677

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