One of the biggest companies in the technological world relies heavily on its retailing strategy. As discussed in class, a retailing strategy is mostly based on “location, location, location,” which has been a key factor to the Apple Stores’ success. The company has slowly located itself in places where there’s a lot of foot traffic and where their high profile stores are relevant (in affluent neighborhoods and malls). Adding stores at a very slow pace has allowed the company to generate excitement every time there’s a new Apple Store opening. With larger stores attracting die hard fans that pass the night lining up to be the first one inside the new store. Such events generate extensive media attention, which acts as “free” publicity for Apple.

The stores provide the exact experience that Apple wants to give its customers, a simplistic yet friendly and clean atmosphere. Things like self-checkout by allowing customers to pay with their phone and walking out without the need of human interaction, to daily workshops to teach customers more about their new products. The chart below shows how retail expansion has led to many more people walking into the stores, making them likely to become potential customers.

Through exclusively providing newly introduced products and other important aspects such as an enhanced customer experience, the stores have become the most profitable per square foot in the world. This renouncing success has led to companies such as Microsoft, Sony and Samsung to mimic this model to no avail. The whole experience that an Apple store provides from the way the customers interact with employees to how they provide support positions the brand on consumers’ minds. A controlled and unified experience is what Apple delivers on all of its products, including the service at its stores.

Latest Apple Store opening in Palo Alto

Post based on a news article on Tech crunch.

After reading Natalie Tang’s post about Target’s expansion and their use of advertisements during the Oscars I wanted to add to what she wrote. As the company gets closer to opening their first retail stores in Canada they are certainly looking to raise awareness. Even though Target is widely known throughout the country, the company is looking to maximize their customer base. In addition to the fact that the theme and the background song attempt to appeal to consumer’s emotions, there’s some reference to Canada such as a maple leaf falling to introduce the ad, a flag moving with the wind and the use of logos to say “Target Loves Canada” which allow Target to actively “target” Canadians as the iconic Target dog travels across the country.

I agree with Natalie regarding their high chance of success, not only because of the brand being known but also because of the close cultural ties between Canada and the US. However, they will face a big challenge with the French speakers who mostly reside in Quebec. This province is culturally different to the rest of Canada and Target seems to acknowledge that. For example, the advertisement that ran during the Oscars is somewhat different for Quebec than the one broadcasted to the rest of Canada. First off there’s no maple leaf falling at the start of the ad and at the end it only presents the Target logo instead of “Target Loves Canada” logos. The background song is also different, it’s a French song called “viendras-tu avec moi?” meaning “will you come with me?” whilst the ad for English speaking Canada features “can’t wait to meet you neighbor.” These key differences might provide some insight into how the company looks to modify its business model to appeal to these very different customers (compared to English speaking Canadians and their cultural ties to the US).

Globe and Mail analysis of English ad. English and French ad versions.

The ABC network defended itself by not allowing an ad to run during the Oscars, a very popular event. This ad consisted of promoting paper products sold by Quill and marketed under the fictional brand “Dunder Mifflin”. The problem is that the show where Dunder Mifflin appears on is called The Office and runs on NBC. It might be wrong for them to have such a strict policy to such a situation but they might not want to mislead their viewers into thinking they’re endorsing a competitor’s TV show. Furthermore, the ad mentions the fact that The Office runs on NBC every Thursday, directly affecting ABC’s prime time shows.

The blog post I’m commenting on does specify that a similar ad ran during the Super Bowl, which was televised by the CBS network. The fact that this network allowed the ad to air during such an important event brings to question why ABC decided not to do so. CBS also has many TV shows that they don’t want to hinder by allowing such advertisements. However, they might have found that not allowing the ad to air could potentially cause more problems than it’s worth (possible criticisms or lawsuits). Airing an ad that mostly promotes paper products that are branded under an imaginary company (might not be known to everyone) might not affect the potential viewer preference.

It is evident that the add featuring the NBC logo at the end could discourage any other network to actually air the ad, especially during such a popular event. Even more, these events are exclusive to the network that airs them (The Oscars are exclusively aired by ABC) and therefore the network might want to promote their own shows instead. Each network decided to look at the opportunity cost of airing the ad during these important events.

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Based on this blog post.