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APPLEQualitative Research Report

Matthew CrawfordColleen HooverBrook MartinKristi MeierKevin ScheckTyler Torcivia

MKT 430: Marketing ResearchOctober 29, 2015

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Table of Contents Introduction & Background………..... slides 3-12 Focus Group Research……………... slides 13-15 Respondents/Demographics……….….... slide 16 Respective Findings……….……….. slides 17-22 Conclusions…………………….….. slides 23-27 Recommendations…………………….... slide 28 References/Citations……………...... slides 29-30 Appendix: Discussion Guide……..... slides 31-32

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Introduction & Background In 1976 Apple started as a

computer company. Over the past decade, Apple

has grown into a complex company that specializes in various products.

In the year 2001, Apple came out with the iPod, which in turn became the dominant market leader in music players.

In the year 2007, Apple joined the phone industry, which has proved to be successful.

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Objective/Purpose To plan a qualitative study on Apple while uncovering emotions

felt toward Apple products. To help determine why consumers buy or do not buy Apple

products. To uncover honest reactions from college students in regards to

Apple products, compared to its competitors. To see what drives people to get several Apple products compared

to Android or other brands. To develop an idea on how people truly value Apple.

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Current State of Affairs Apple seems to be focusing too

much on finances instead of new gadgets as of recently.

Without new gadgets their financial decisions can only keep them thriving for so long. They need to introduce new products if they want to keep their popularity.

Apple also needs to create a new image for their latest phones. People are exhausted of seeing the same phone constantly. They need to significantly improve their phone before releasing the next version.

Trugman, J. (n.d.). “Apple needs gadgets, not financial gimmicks.”

MacDailyNews. (n.d.). Retrieved October 23, 2015

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Apple and Android Both iPhone and Android people are affluent, educated, eager

digital device consumers, and well-represented across the adult age spectrum up to 65.

iPhone people are a notch up the socio-economic scale: higher income, higher education, higher representation in professional and managerial jobs.

Apple people are tech enthusiasts. Android people include additional hard-core techies: they work in technical jobs and are more comfortable with the more open but less polished Android user experience.

What Kind Of Person Prefers an iPhone? 20. (2014, April 10).

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Apple Demographics What demographics are most common who own Apple products? Highest level of education attained:

iPhone buyers are more educated; they are overweight +27% for graduate/PhD education and under-weight -33% for high school education.

Household income: iPhone buyers are more affluent; they are overweight +11% for

>$75,000, +30% for >$100,000 and +48% for > $125,000. Current occupation:

iPhone buyers are professionals and business people; they over-weight +38% for professional/managerial and +31% for operations/sales.

The results shown above are all “statistically significant,” which means it is very likely that the patterns that show up among the people who responded to the surveys.

What Kind Of Person Prefers an iPhone? 20. (2014, April 10).

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Current State of Affairs With technology advancing, it is

vital for society to obtain the most up-to-date devices in order to “fit-in” with society.

Baylor’s media communication program did a study and revealed on average women in college spend 10 hrs./day on their phones while men only spend 8 hrs. with adequate grades.

60% of college students admit they are addicted to their phones, some show signs of withdrawal when it is out of sight.

Goodrich, Terry. "Cell phone Addiction Is ‘an Increasingly Realistic Possibility,’ Baylor Study of College Students Reveals." 27 Aug. 2014.

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Brand Personality The Apple brand personality is about lifestyle, imagination, liberty

regained, innovation, passion, hopes, dreams and aspirations, and power-to-the-people through technology.

The Apple brand personality is also about simplicity and the removal of complexity from people's lives, people-driven product design, and about being a really humanistic company with a heartfelt connection with its customers.

Apple fully understands that all aspects of the customer experience are important and that all brand touch-points must reinforce the Apple brand.

The overall feeling is one of inclusiveness by a community that really understands what good technology should look and feel like and how it should fit into people's lives.

Apple’s Branding Strategy. (n.d.).

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Brand Personality By looking at brand personality you can really get a good insight on what

people value and how they feel socially accepted because of this particular brand.

Brands can have a significant advantage in terms of standing out from the crowd and supporting a relationship with customers.

People express their own or idealized selves in part by the brands that they buy and use, especially when the brands are socially visible and have a personality.

Using an Apple computer expresses for some a non-corporate, creative self, based in part on the perception that the Apple brand’s personality is irreverent, creative and young, and challenges convention.

A brand personality can help build an understanding among the brand’s company, and can communicate internally, about a brand-customer relationship that can suggest programs and be the basis of brand loyalty.

Aaker, D. (2015, July 1). Brand Personalities Are Like Snowflakes.

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Motivation to Buy Apple Sales rates of Android have more than tripled over the last several

months from 60,000 to 200,000 per day. The iPhone currently only sells 126,000 devices per day. Apple and Android combined are likely to account for the majority of the smartphone sales each year.

Androids phones range from $450-$500 where iPhones are a bit more expensive starting at $600+.

In one of the articles, their suggestion is “to mitigate Android momentum, Apple needs to strike distribution deals with additional large carriers, even if it has to sacrifice some pricing power.” This information helps us understand more of the previous sales figures that both Apple and Android have had and how they grow.

Android – Apples Biggest Threat? Blackbook (2010, October). Page 01-09.

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Current State of affairs Apple advertises a “better

life” to customers and make the trend of lifestyle and aesthetics appeal important.

Each new product they launch is supported by an advertising campaign and the result is to generate a larger amount of sales.

This approach keeps consumers excited about Apples products and keeps Apple as a leader of the technology industry.

Johnson, Katherine, (2012),"The Innovative Success that is Apple, Inc."

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Purpose & Goals Goal #1: To determine why

consumers buy or don’t buy apple products.

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Purpose & Goals Goal #2: To understand social

acceptance. Our purpose was to get a better understanding on people’s feelings, beliefs, and value toward Apple. This focus group gave us some insight on what people are thinking.

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Purpose & Goals Goal #3: To understand the

outlook people have on Apple Inc. and their products. We wanted to gain insight into the moods, behaviors and attitudes of our target market for Apple Inc.

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Respondents & Demographics The first group had 5 participants (all female, white) college

students at Shippensburg university in Dr. Coolsen’s Marketing Research Class.

The second group had 6 participants (two male, one white and one African American) (4 females, one African American and three white) college students at Shippensburg University in Dr. Coolsen’s Marketing Research Class.

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Respective Findings: Goal 1 Some of the participants felt peer pressure (the need to buy

iPhones because their group message would not send or receive texts with a different brand of phone).

Some also felt far behind with technology, even if the iPhone they had was still fairly new (especially in regards to upgrading your phone).

Our research discovered that the majority of our participants had a positive experience and felt excited towards Apple and their products.

In the first focus group several felt that Apple was cohesive in their products, connected, and that Android comes close.

When asked what type of trends do you see in technology or Apple, they mentioned touch screen pressure, holograms, faster and larger, and think it and text it (it texts what you think).

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Respective Findings: Goal 2 Nearly all of the students we interviewed in our focus group were

pro-Apple. We also had a good variation of answers for some questions which

was very interesting feedback. In our first group (all female) everyone was very enthusiastic to

respond to every question and provided lengthy answers. In our second group (mixed gender & races) we got shorter answers

and some questions weren’t answered by every participant. This information may suggest that people talk more when

comfortable with the people they’re around. Another interesting piece of information we noticed was that a lot of people said they originally got Apple products because friends had them. This shows that Apple products are associated with social acceptance.

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Respective Findings: Goal 2 Overall we found that our target population (young adults/college

students) have a positive attitude towards Apple. One participant stated that they feel like they are in the “in” crowd with

Apple. Apple made them feel excited, happy, having fun, and innovative. The

only negative discovery found was what products they wished to see from Apple.

One participant stated they wanted a better charger, and wanted a longer charge. One expressed they wanted the iPhone to be more durable. It gave us insight to how they behave and their attitude to Apple.

An indirect finding was how many participant actually had more than one Apple Product. Several stated they had a full Apple Package. They listed this package as an iPhone, iPad, MacBook, Apple TV, and IPod.

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Respective Findings: Goal 3 We found that people were

happy, excited, having fun, annoyed, felt far behind, did not care, unnecessary, and peer pressured. Most of these findings were positive in the fact that the participants had Apple products and loved the product itself.

Some of the participants felt that if you had one Apple product, then you need them all. They also included that once an individual has an Apple product they never seem to switch, they stick with that same brand.

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Respective Findings: Goal 3 In general most students we interviewed in the focus group had

positive feelings towards Apple and even seemed to enjoy talking about the brand.

Many people loved the style of the devices and that they could all sync together. This was a main aspect that many of the participants loved about Apple, the fact that the devices make it easy for them to organize their life and communicate better to friends and family, regardless of the price.

There were hardly any negative feelings toward Apple unless they were an Android user.

Another common issue was that Apple products are known to be fragile. Android users had an issue with Apple because both devices are just as fragile and Android users could not see how people pay more for Apple.

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Conclusion Apple is unquestionably the favorite brand of smart phones among

college students and they also show great loyalty to the brand. Apple is constantly putting out new products and based on our

findings, people enjoy buying the newest releases. They are also constantly evolving their software. This allows them

to maintain the top brand position in the smart phone industry. People get excited for Apple’s new product releases and this is a

way they are continually creating awareness for their brand. The findings of this study help define how and why people think

the way they do about Apple’s products.

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Conclusion We have discovered that Apple among the public and consumers

is doing a great job. The target market feels that Apple is “in” and that they have to

buy their products. Consumers also feel that their life is easier with their products and allows them to keep up with technology.

People love their products for the ease of use and the innovation found in each of them.

Apple is a game changer for technology and forces their competitors to stay on their feet. They control the Industry and keep it constantly changing.

They are the company to be right now. The only thing that could slow Apple down in the future is the stopping of new technology.

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Conclusion Apple is doing a great job at being the product that everyone wants

all year round. They are constantly evolving to meet demands and be the best

company for all demographics in their target market. Apple products have even shown us how simple technology can be

and how it can make life simpler for us. They continue to come out with new technology and consumers

still want the newest product even if their merchandise is only a year old.

We could tell from our focus group, most people feel awesome, excited, or happy when they own an Apple product and that is how everyone should feel about a phone or device that they own.

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Conclusion To conclude we know that Apple holds leadership in the industry

of smart devices but to increase our knowledge of societal trends we thought college students were the perfect segment seeing as they grow up with these products and incorporate them into their everyday life.

By soliciting feedback from focus groups on specific topics concerning Apple’s positioning in the industry such as features, products, and services Apple does better/worse than its competitors, therefore we can gather a general sense of consumer perspectives on Apple.

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Conclusion For the future, Apple is

undergoing development of extending into the industry of automobiles working with perspective companies such as Toyota to incorporate “charging pads” in consoles of most Japanese and German vehicle.

CEO Tim Cook stated they are not currently working on it but it is a possible opportunity for the future of Apple this is an opportunity that I would highly recommend. Nelson, Gabe. "Waiting for Apple." Business

Source Complete. Automotive News, 28 Sept. 9.

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Recommendations A recommendation that we have for Apple would be for them to

improve the durability of their products; many people complained about how their products are always breaking.

Another recommendation we have for Apple is for them is to create a new, up and coming product that will help them establish themselves as the number one industry leader permanently.

Apple Inc. is one of the largest companies in the world right now. They are working in the right direction and continuing to improve.

Therefore the last recommendation we have for Apple is to continue to upgrade and develop new technology. Without their updated items and releasing of new phones they wouldn’t be where they are today.

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References/Citations Aaker, D. (2015, July 1). Brand Personalities Are Like Snowflakes. Retrieved

October 20, 2015, from: https://www.ama.org/publications/MarketingNews/Pages/brand-personalities-are-like-snowflakes.aspx Slide 10

Goodrich, Terry. "Cell phone Addiction Is ‘an Increasingly Realistic Possibility,’ Baylor Study of College Students Reveals." Baylor University. Baylor Media Communications, 27 Aug. 2014. Web. Retrieved October 22, 2015 Slide 8

Johnson, Katherine; Li, Yang; Phan, Hang; Singer, Jason; and Trinh, Hoang, "The Innovative Success that is Apple, Inc." (2012) Retrieved October 22, 2015, from: http://mds.marshall.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1420&context=etd Slide 12

Nelson, Gabe. "Waiting for Apple." Business Source Complete. Automotive News, 28 Sept. 9. Web. Retrieved October 20, 2015 Slide 27

Trugman, J. (n.d.). “Apple needs gadgets, not financial gimmicks.” Retrieved October 23, 2015 Slide 5

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References/Citations Android – Apples Biggest Threat? Blackbook (2010, October).

Page 01-09. Retrieved October 22, 2015, from: http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=f3794939-19da-4929-b9eb-c2a6986499dc%40sessionmgr113&vid=1&hid=120 Slide 11

Apple’s Branding Strategy. (n.d.). Retrieved October 23, 2015 http://www.marketingminds.com.au/apple_braning_strategy.html Slide 9

MacDailyNews. (n.d.). Retrieved October 23, 2015 Slide 5

What Kind Of Person Prefers an iPhone? 20. (2014, April 10). Retrieved October 23, 2015 http://www.forbes.com/sites/toddhixon/2014/04/10/what-kind-of-person-prefers-an-iphone/ Slide 7

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Appendix: Discussion Guide When you hear the name "Apple", what is the first thing that comes to your

mind? How do you feel when your hear about the next iPhone being released? How do you think Apple does among its competitors?  If so, what stands out

that Apple does differently? Do you think Apple does a good job with promoting new products?  How

so, and what examples have you discovered? What feature is most beneficial for your specific usage? Do you own any Apple products?  If so, what made you decide to buy for

them and if not what turned you off? Do you upgrade your phone annually or as soon as you can? What emotions do you feel when you buy the newest device and most up-to-

date product? What type of trends do you see occurring in the future for technology?

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Appendix: Discussion Guide Tell us a story about Apple. What does the Apple name mean to you? How does Apple make you feel? How does Apple stand out? How do you feel Apple should promote their products? What features differentiate Apple? What Apple product do you currently own? When do you upgrade your Apple phone? What emotions do you feel with the Apple brand? What type of trends do you see in the future for Apple? What products do you want Apple to come out with?