Abstract
Brand Building
Introduction
Building a brand is among the most important efforts that companies are trying to perfect and the accrued value as a result of such efforts are referred to as brand equity. With brand building, companies are able to expand their market, which in return encompasses success that reflects on the companies’ bottom line. The common basis of brand equity is the strength of the established relationship between the brand and its customers. The term customer loyalty is possible if the brand was able to establish a strong foothold on its customer’s awareness. In order to gauge brand equity among customers, a strongly loyal was interviewed to determine factors attributed to the customer’s loyalty to the brand. In addition, customer’s opinion towards other competitive brands will be highlighted. Lastly, the customer’s preferred bran will be examined by identifying the market segment and demographics that the brand targets, the brand’s position in the market, and the intangible value that the brand has built over time. The brand in focus for this discussion is Apple and based on the assumptions made considering the information obtained from the loyal customer and published literature, it is apparent that Apple Inc. was able to establish its market position by employing the customer-based brand equity.
Part I. Apple Loyal Customer
The subject who agreed to interview is a family member whose name will not be disclosed as part of the condition for the interview. The subject is a male 33 years old and works as a graphics artist for an advertising and marketing firm. He has been a loyal Apple customer since the brand re-introduced itself to the as a premier consumer electronics manufacturer during the glory days of the first generation iPod. According to the subject, the advent of the portable media player led him to trust Apple’s iPod because of the new approach to media utilization technology. Since then, the subject began to complete place its confidence to the brand in term of purchasing electronic gadgets such as MacBook Pro, Apple TV, iPhone, iPad, and other related peripherals. In order to probe the reasons why the subject is highly attached to the product a short questionnaire was used. The following series of questions was used in the questionnaire to probe loyalty.
- Please check brands of electronic gadgets you own in column A, how many in column B, and if you plan to purchase a brand of electronic gadget within the next 12 months in column C.
Questions
- List at least three reasons that made you decide to stay with your preferred brand
- What are the main qualities that you are looking for in a consumer electronics product, and indicate if the aforementioned qualities are met by your preferred brand?
- When you are walking in the electronics section of a shopping mall which store do you often stay the longest? Check all that applies
- Mac Store
- Nokia
- Samsung
- LG
- When you are engaged in a brand customer service query, how fast do you expect your questions are answered?
- Which among the four brands do you think provides the best customer service?
- Apple
- LG
- Samsung
- Microsoft
The rest of the questions are open-ended and only supports the assumptions made in analyzing the responses made on the aforementioned questions. On the other hand, descriptive analysis was employed to interpret the responses made by the subject as to probing the level of loyalty that he has towards Apple branded products. Based on the subject’s responses, the only brand that he owns and planning to purchase in the future is strictly Apple. Among the reasons that the subject have enumerated that supports the rationale for the choice of brand are durability, design, embedded technology, and the level of customer service response/support. Furthermore, the subject states that he spends a lot of time checking-in on an Apple store than the rest of the other brands’ store. Lastly, based on user experiences by the subject’s peers and family members, the other brands do not come close in terms of providing adequate customer service. As such, the subject perceived Apple as the best customer service provider.
After the long discussion about Apple, the subject was asked if he would consider the other competitive brands such as Samsung. However, the subject immediately steered away from the idea of getting a Samsung-branded product for a number of reasons. For one, the subject states that Samsung has no unique platform that extends the value of the brand to the product hardware. This means that Samsung is using an open-source technology to develop its own products such as Android mobile OS platform installed in Samsung smartphones. On the other hand, Apple was able to successfully emphasize its brand from software to hardware. For example, Apple developed its own set of Operating Systems for mobile and Desktop that is not only secured, but also screams Apple.
Part II Apple Inc. Brand Building and Equity
Market Segment and Target
For loyal Apple users, the band does not only represent a strong brand, but a lifestyle on its own. Parts of the growing market that Apple is currently targeting are writers, photographers, artists, musicians, and innovators. The company was able to successfully position itself as a maker of high-end consumer electronics boasting a wide range of highly innovative hardware, software, design sophistication, and user experience. The primary target market for Apple are mostly consumers within the teens to early 40s who are willing to explore more about technology instead of relying on the redundant technology offered by competitors (Adjorlolo et al., 2010). The product lines are not as diverse as the other similar consumer electronics company, but each product type appears to cater to specific market segment. For example, iPads are being offered as a singular product category, but it was divided to sub-types identified by means of storage capacity. More extensive users can go for a 32GB iPad, while less frequent user may choose to have the 8GB or 16GB for a fraction of the cost.
Another example is the range of iPods where consumers can choose between a 2GB Shuffle for $50 or a $250 classic. Both devices are media players, but they were made different in order to appeal to specific market segment. The brand caters to a multi-segment market, which means Apple is doing its best to satisfy multiple user class. For example, a teenager who loves to play music and play games at the same time may choose to have an iTouch with a back camera and use third party applications to demonstrate creativity. On the other hand, a professional photographer may use in-house software such as Aperture 3 as an ultimate creativity tool for more intensive photographic experience. Despite the differences in segmentation and market reach, Apple still positions the brand as a frontline innovator in consumer electronics.
Apple’s Brand Building Over time
As mentioned in the introductory part, brand equity is referred to as the result of branding efforts that leads to the creation of distinct and unique brand identity. Apple encompasses the development of its brand equity that began in naming the brand and use of simple logo. The company uses the fruit “Apple” as brand name to enforce recall power. Branding constitutes the need to create an identity that is uniquely simple and easy to remember (Farhana. 2012). In addition, the fruit itself shares a set of distinct characteristics with the Apple Inc. branded products. As a fruit apple embodies simplicity, but it is packed with health-beneficial elements. To compare that with Apple products, the hardware are simple yet elegant, but ultimately it is packed with processing power. Over a period of time, the brand was able to set itself apart from the industry competition through constant innovation. Apple’s computing products owed its brand identity from innovations that made an impact to the computing world.
One example is that Apple as a desktop computer maker leads significant technology changes such as kick starting the birth of USB storage sticks and at the same time signed the death warrant of the 3.5 inch floppy discs (McCracken, 2014). From that point on Apple continued its leap towards innovation while putting on a new suit of brand building strategies that mattered today. Product aesthetic is also considered as a brand building investment that, which the brand was well known today. It started when the first iMac appeared in 1998, which changed the usual boring beige body of desktop computers into fun-looking translucent colored body and fluid geometric design. Furthermore, the icon-based user interface spearheaded by Apple innovation landed the brand the distinction of having the ease of use and simple user interface often seen in the OSX software that screams elegance. Apple leveraged on hardware and software aesthetics and innovation in creating its current brand equity.
Market Position
