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.

Ch. 16 - Advertising, Public Relations and Sales Promotion

Apple Inc has become very famous for its advertisements since 1980s. 
Its most significant ad campaigns include the super bowl commercial in 1984, the 1990s The think different campaign, and the "iPod people" of the 2000s.

The "think different" campaign is 

one of the most successful campaigns in the history of advertising.During the 90's, Apple was in a crisis and with only one campaign, they were doing better. The campaign consisted of two main parts : the black and white television commercial and a print campaign. 

Steve Jobs said: “It only took 15 . . . 30 . . . maybe 60 seconds to re-establish Apple’s counter-culture image that it had lost during the 90s”.

When it comes to sales promotion, apple knows best. Apple uses short-term techniques to persuade their target market to buy their products. Some examples of promotion sales are : the money back guarantees, rebates etc. The apple stores are very distinct and captivating because they expose all their products for consumers and they allow them for example to surf on the web from any computer or lister to music on ipods and experience the iPhone and its features. This lets consumers to be more comfortable with the product and familiarize themselves with them. 

Another example of Sales promotion is when college students buy the Macbook during summer they can get any free iPod they want and a free printer. This promotion will highly increase the sales of the Macbooks. When you purchase a concet ticket through Ticketmaster, you can purchase the corresponding artist's album for $1 off the iTunes Store price.

Ch-14 Marketing Channels and Retailing

Apple is one of the world's most successful retailers. Apple operates nearly 400 retail stores all over the world with 42 000 employees  and with more than  a million visitors every day.  It is estimated that Apple’s Fifth Avenue store generates over $35,000 per square foot making it the highest grossing retailer in New York - ever. 
Apples annual retail sales per square foot are approximately $6000( excluding online sales ) and this is more than the annual sales per square foot of Tiffany & Co and Best Buy. 

Apple's retail success is dued to a large demand for the company's products. Apple had to think different about retail and make their stores more than just a place for people to go and buy products. The job of the Apple store employees is to not to sell, but to help the costumers and to understand all of their needs. Also to approach customers with personalized warm welcome, and at the end, an invitation to return if they need something.  "People don't just want to buy personal computers anymore, they want to know what they can do with them," said Mr. Jobs. 

Apple have direct and indirect channel. Direct channels are when they sell products directly to consumers. In order for Apple to expand their sales,they use also indirect distribution channel, they have been slowly adding  distribution channels with high sales such as AT&T,Sprint, t-mobile, Verizon, Best Buy and Walmart. 

Ch 6 - Consumer decision making

The apple store is one of the successful products of Apple inc. Thousands of applications are submitted and downloaded  every day. Applications are developed according to the need and interest of the consumers. Those applications can be purchased or downloaded from the desktop iTunes App store and the mobile App Store on the iOS devices such as iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.
Consumers on the App store are behaving differently depending on the unit they are using.
Young consumers with lower income purchase apps more frequently than those with higher income.
While buying the apps, consumers consider also the screenshots, the description and the rating of the apps. Consumers are attracted by visual elements that they are already familiar with, like famous logos, fonts, names and colors.  Most of the consumers found the iTunes app store messy and confusing. They prefer using the App store because they found found it to be a good mixture of both iTunes and iPhone app store but also because it has a lot of options to consider.