Analyzing Brand Equity: A Case Study Of Apple Inc.

Who are you? Brand Salience

1. Who are you? Brand Salience.
2. What are you?  Brand Performance and Brand Imagery.
3. What about You? Customer Reactions.
4. What about you and me? Consumer Brand Resonance.

Customer Based Brand Equity is a way of analyzing the value of particular brand in the minds of the customers. The element of branding happens to increase the popularity of the brands with the consumers and the end customers and also increases the chances o profitability of the brand and its various products (Glynn and Woodside, 2009).

The Apple Inc. is a multinational technology company based in America, headquartered in Cupertino, California. The company happens to be designing and development of consumer electronics such as computer software and personal computers as well as online services. Some of the best known products of the company happen to be iPod player, IPhone smartphone and IPad Tablet computers along with the Apple Watch smartwatch (Torelli, 2013).

Brand salience will be referring to the image that any brand has in the minds of the consumers. This brand salience has a big role to play whenever a customer happens to be in a buying position. Big and global brands which has been in the market for a long time and has a greater awareness about them has a stronger salience and the ones which are smaller brands again has either smaller brand salience or no brand salience at all. This is the feature that helps a customer or an end user to choose the brand that he or she will be purchasing from the array of brands that happens to be in the market. In fact one can also say that the element of brand salience helps the stronger brands become strong and the weaker brands become weak in the global market (Hutt and Speh, 2010).

In this respect it could be said that the company Apple Inc, the American technology giant happens to be a brand that has a global presence. The company and its products are considered to be an ace quality product and we also see that the customers of the brand happens to choose this brand since they have special fondness or preference for the said brand. In fact I the huge gamut of the various ace quality brands who offers an array of technological gadgets such as the smartphones, the IPhones, the tablets and the other IT software, the name of the company Apple is considered to be a premium brand. In this case we also see that though the price of the product happens to be a bit higher than what it for the other brands but a section of the end consumers do believe that the high price happens to be the sign of a better quality that the brand has to offer to its customers (Sharp, 2010).

What are you? Brand Performance and Brand Imagery

Brand performance is a concept that could be explained from two points of views. In this case it could be said that Brand performance happens to be the result of the brand desirability amongst the consumers and the end customers and also it means the value that the brand happens to add to the company. Brand imagery on the other hand happens to be the set of ideas or perceptions that the end consumers happens to have in mind regarding any particular brand (Hutt and Speh, 2013).

Apple is a brand that has a great brand performance. The value that the brand attaches to the company happens to be evitable all over the world. In the field of technological and electronic gadget the value that the brand Apple has and the contributions that the brand makes to the company both in terms of revenue as well as the acclamations received worldwide happens to be quite unsurpassable. In fact in one of the recent annual reports it had been stated that the brand Apple happens to have surpassed the brand Coco Cola which was earlier considered to be the world’s most valued brand. Similarly in terms of the brand imagery we see that the brand Apple has a very high conception in the minds of the customers. It has been noticed that the brand happens to be known for the high level of pricing which again is considered to be the reason for it being an ace quality brand of product (Lederman, 2007).

Customers happen to be the most important element for any type of business or any particular brand on a global scale. In fact we also see that most business operations and functions or the various strategies that are formulated within the company, happens to rest greatly on the issue of customer reactions. As quite understandable from the term itself, customer reaction happens to refer to the fact that customer’s way or response to any particular brand or its products. This is the most important element in the literature of business establishment and the companies of the modern times happen to employ a great of their resources trying to figure out the same (Adamson, 2006).

In the case of Apple we see that the company has a very strong customer reaction. In fact the product is also considered to be a high end product which happens to provide both very high quality of performance and offers some really ace category features for the benefit of the users of the product and also we see that the element of pricing of the product is also considered to be on the higher end as well (Kumar, 2013).

What about You? Customer Reactions

Brand resonance happens to relate to the attitudinal attachment of the psychological attachment that the customer has with the brand. In this case we can say that bran d resonance might also refer to the bonding that happens to be between the brand and its end users (Schultz, Patti and Kitchen, 2013).

Apple is a brand that happens to be global favorite. In fact the term or the name of the brand happens to be an universal favorite. The kind of technology that the brand offers to the global gamut of users happens to be both sophisticated and again ultra modern. Quite naturally we see that those buyers who happens to have a special liking for technological and electronic gadgets often prefers those companies which happens to offer the best level of technological features and the most updated science of the time. Quite naturally we see that the technological giant Apple happens to become an instant hit and becomes a thorough favorite of such gizmo users or end customers. Thus the brand resonance of the brand again happens to be very strong with the global gamut of end users and also that of those customers who have a special fondness for the latest technology that is ruling the market at the current point of time (Kerin and Peterson, 2012).

Conclusion:

On a concluding note it could be said that the brand and its image has a great role to play or the commercial success of any brand. In this context we also need to point out that the role of the end users or the general customers happens to be rather prime. We see that the companies happens to invest much in exploring the image that they hold or have in the minds of their customers and again the companies again invests heavily to improve the same which could provide with a higher index of profitability in the market. Thus the element of brand equity based on the customer’s psyche mainly is quite important and we also see that the same happens to depend greatly on the mentality of the global gamut of customers. In this context the brand Apple happens to be a market leader who rules both the market trends by introducing new technologies that again helps the company to reign supreme in the preference list of the customers.

References:

Glynn, M. and Woodside, A., 2009. Business-to-business brand management theory, research and executive case study exercises. Bingley, UK: JAI Press.

Torelli, C. 2013. Globalization, culture and branding : how to leverage cultural equity for building iconic brands in the era of globalization. New York City, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.

Hutt, M. and Speh, T. 2010. Business marketing management : B2B. Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.

Sharp, B. 2010. How brands grow : what marketers don't know. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press.

Hutt, M. and Speh, T. 2013. Business marketing management : B2B. Australia Mason, OH: South-Western, Cengage Learning.

Lederman, G. 2007. Achieve brand integrity! : ten truths you must know to enhance employee performance and increase company profits. Rochester, N.Y: B@W Press.

Adamson, A. 2006. Brandsimple : how the best brands keep it simple and succeed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Kumar, V. 2013. Profitable customer engagement : concept, metrics, and strategies. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications India Pvt. Ltd.

Kerin, R. and Peterson, R., 2012. Strategic marketing problems : cases and comments. New Delhi: Pearson Education.

Schultz, D., Patti, C. and Kitchen, P., 2013. The Evolution of Integrated Marketing Communications the Customer-driven Marketplace. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis.