Displaying items by tag: Marketing

For many years Apple has existed in something of a bubble. The bubble was created by their PR and Marketing division (arguably one of the best on the planet) and was designed to put Apple on a higher platform. Part of this was to paint the hardware and software used in Apple’s products as “higher-quality” which commanded a much higher price. This has allowed Apple to push their products on the market as significantly higher prices than their competition and still maintain great sales.

Recently launched iPhone 5C is reportedly not selling well enough, at least in Apple's criteria. According to latest information provided by the Wall Street Journal, they reduced the production of smartphones shortly after the release.

“ Now you listen to me, young lady! Even if we're *horribly mangled*, there'll be no sad faces on Christmas.”The Grinch, “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas,” Universal Pictures, 2000
We’ve wrapped up the last of our summer vacations, the kids are back at school and it’s time for your first sighting of a pre-holiday ad or online/in-store Christmas decoration.  Don’t worry, retailers have been thinking about it for you. After last year’s white-knuckle Christmas, retailers and manufacturers have been working feverishly to ensure you forget about how you scoured the web and stores looking for bargains. Actually, they learned a lot from all of their efforts to convince you they had the stuff you wanted to buy, give, share. So, they’re pulling out all of the stops and testing a bunch of new technologies to not just finish the season in a solid manner but even produce a little sales lift this year. Retailers have set some aggressive goals for the season; and this year, they’re focused on the bottom-line. It all boils down to their ability to drive sales through strategically timed promotions and totally integrated marketing – web, social media, mobile device, in-store.

It is now clear to everyone that Microsoft itself has not made any good promotion with the launch of Xbox One at E3, and many would say that they hurt themselves more with the decisions related to this console. In this sense, the Wall Street Journal believes that the increase in Sony's internal estimates of PS4 sales in the first months may be more Microsoft's fault than Sony's.

After eBay CEO, John Donahoe, announced that the company will use mobile technology to be more involved in the "offline" business, eBay has introduced a project with four physical shop window in which they present a fashion collection by Kate Spade.

Apple has been having a rough time during the first few months of 2013. So far they have been taken to court over their eBook pricing efforts, their tax plans and have even had some older models of their iPhone and iPad banned from import into the US. This all happened to a company that was set to hit $1,000 a share in the latter half of 2012. Sadly for Apple many things have changed since then including their campaign to stomp out competition through the use of patents instead of innovation. Apple’s image and mythology has taken a huge blow while rival companies like Samsung, LG and even HTC and Motorola are working to push new technologies into their products (even if they might not make sense).

During the Samsung V Apple patent trail we briefly covered some of the requirements that Apple has if you want to sell their products. These requirements include a minimum purchase order, marketing material, special cabinets and displays for Apple products and more. These tactics make it seem almost impossible that anyone would be confused about what they were buying (unless the sales person was not honest). Our coverage was more about the ridiculous claim that Samsung and other Android tablets were creating marketing confusion, but we also talked a little about how these marketing requirements were a little anti-competitive.

Microsoft has put up an interesting new video spot where they attack the iPad on its in ability to truly multi-task, the static display and Office. The spot is sort of clever and uses Siri to highlight the points at each step. The goal of the ad is to show Windows 8 on a tablet as a true productivity device. As you might expect truth in advertising is a little limited in the ads, but we could be seeing a change in the way that Microsoft is approaching marketing. This is a good thing considering the dreadful sales that Windows 8 and Windows RT are showing right now.

According to analyst firm ChangeWave survey, every fifth respondent would buy the Apple watch. Of course, provided that the device is introduced first. The survey was conducted in March on 1713 people in the U.S.

Looks like Microsoft will try to take advantage of the popularity of smaller tablets like many others are doing. According to the Wall Street Journal, the company is developing one such device.