Matthew Leung

This is the final blog post of the semester, or perhaps, until there is another opportunity to post in this blog again.

For this last blog post I will be responding to a classmates (Luisa Wen) blog post on Justin Bieber and Macy’s co-branding.

https://blogs.ubc.ca/luisawen/2011/11/23/justin-bieber-macy-and-marketing/

From what I have learned from her blog post and heard from my friends about Justin Bieber, is that he is a singer/actor that has caught the attention of millions and millions of young girl fans. From this, it is obvious why Bieber and Macy are partnering to have a Black Friday campaign to sell his product, “Someday”. When visiting the States, I see Macy’s as a department store targeted towards teenage girls/boys with a budget or teenage girls/boys that shop with their parents.

Through the fan base Bieber has created, it is even more obvious why Macy has partnered with Bieber to create this co-brand. Furthermore, in the blog post by Luisa, she mentioned that they will be donating $2 dollars for every product sold. With the increasing trend of corporate social responsibility (CSR), they can use this trend to capture a secondary market; thus, generating more sales and expanding the already large market for Macy and Bieber fans.

When reading through my classmates blogs, I came across a post that I could relate to. Apple Is Still Winning

In Douglas Cheung’s post he explains how Apple is still winning despite not releasing a newly redesigned iPhone. iPhone’s have become a hot topic in the past few years because it is the phone that is dominating the market right now, and it continues to do so year after year.

When I was reading his blog post, one thing came to my mind because we have recently learned in COMM 296 about branding. Branding must be the main reason why Apple can still sell 1 Million iPhone’s on launch day and it must be the reason why consumers bought the new phone despite the lack of a new design. In my opinion, Steve Jobs death impacted the sales slightly but it did not impact the sale of these phones in a large scale.

A more in depth look at how Apple brands the iPhone would make it clear as to why the iPhone 4s was so successful. First, Apple has brand loyalty, I know a few friends that are considered ‘Apple Fan Boys’, all their gadgets are from Apple (MacBook, iPhone, iPod, etc) and whenever a new Apple product comes out they will upgrade to that product. With brand loyalty Apple already has a large market that it can rely on and new consumers into this market would be a bonus for them. Second, Apple has differentiated their products from their main competitors by having their own operating system that works flawlessly, the iOS; this is also the value they add to their products.

Finally, an important point about branding that I think Apple is doing good in is packaging. They have simple packaging for their products. I recently bought the iPhone 4s (my first iPhone and first Apple product), I was amazed to see how simple the packaging was. You could simply remove the shrink wrap, open the box, and take the phone out and power it on and it will work right out of the box. This simplicity and the ability to use the product right out of the box definitely adds value to the product and it also acts as an advantage over other products.

Here as some funny screenshots of Siri on the iPhone 4s I came across (hopefully it makes your day better!):