Ch. 11 - Developing and Managing Products

Apple is clearly one of the most innovative firms in the world. They have a new product every few months. Innovation is the key to new product devlopment and Apple has it nailed. Apple is a company that keeps coming ou with new ideas o how to make their products better and more efficient. The first iPod was introduced in 2001 and after that apple came out with 24 more models, one better than the model before. they also came out with 4 iPads generation and 2 mini iPads and 8 iPhones.

The Apple new product strategy is put in action once the product is designed and talked about. Its a document that sets every step in the devlopment process of a product in detail. This concept was first applied at the company when the macintosh was developed; It's not an original apple concept. its shows the objectives of the marketing department, the business  unit and the corporation.
Apple's team meets every monday to go over the New product and discuss it.

Ch. 18 -Social Media and Marketing

Social media is a tool or service that uses the internet to facilitate conversations. Social media is one of the top source of marketing for any kind of business. the larger your company is, the more marketing you start to need in order to grow demand. There are many brands that do not have social media such as Apple inc.
Apple is one of the most successful companies and has absolutely no social media. Apple do not have any official Facebook page and only a 55 tweets on twitter account, avoiding social media. but consumers are still searching for them on the net,there are millions of consumers liking their pages on facebook and following them on twitter, on hundreds of unofficial accounts. We can say that Apple's social media strategy is to create great and good products and letting people talking about them to each other. consumers go in person to the apple store or Bestbuy just to touch the new iPad or iPhone 5S. Maybe apple think they are too successful for using scoial  media, they are using the good old business saying of " why fix it if it's not broken " .

Ch 10- product concept

Apple made the first major change in its product mix in 2001, by introducing the iPod. Apple was taking a huge risk by extending its brand to the portable music player category, but this change allowed apple to reach a completely segment of consumers. Apple took this opportunity  to transform these new consumers into mac consumers by making them into the iTunes system. Ipod users need to have music on their devices, and to have music they need a computer. Itunes and Macs were the perfect support products. The iPod was a huge hit for Apple this year, and in the same year apple opened its. First retail store to improve its distribution strategy. As the company knew a Huge success with both the iPod and iMacs and MacBooks, it's product line began to expand. The introduced the iPod mini followed by iPod nano and shuffle. In addition, the brand was extended with introducing further products such as the Apple TV, iPhones and recently the iPads. 




Products are what's makes a business. Concept of products determines how successful a business can be financially. Business product and consumer product are two types of product concept. The consumer product best describes Apple because they are made to satisfy costumers needs and wants for example : the MacBook, iPod, iPhone and iPad, they are all for personal use. 
When Apple came out with the iPad, that product in itself was a specialty product because no other company was selling a device like the iPad. I think the iPhone belongs to the shopping product because buyers are comparing it with other phones before buying it and also the iPhone is more expensive than the other phones. 

Ch. 17 - Personal Selling and Sales Management

Personal selling is the act of using people to sell products to consmers face-to-face. Apple's sales representatives are very well trained in both customer service and product information. Apple has a new product every few months, so it is important for those sales representative to be up to date about the latest technologies entering the market. Those sales representative are generally within the generation X or Y age range, so they grew up in this technology era and they are already familiar with it.
It is important that the sales representative offer excellent customer service. they should be able to explain this technology to consumers who are not exposed to it and want suddenly to obtain this knowledge. They should be able to make the transition from "old world" to " new world"easy for those consumers. These methods help increasing sales and a trusting and reputable image for apple.