Two years ago, Apple was strongly blamed for its different guarantee policy in China. It actually broke the Chinese laws for guarantee in electronic products by shortening the guarantee period and narrowing the guarantee scope. By doing so, it will definitely earn much more money, especially when the company is in a huge potential market, with tens of thousands of people using its products. However, things turned out in a different way.

This unfair guarantee policy set off people’s dissatisfactory against Apple, which, also decreased its sales in the Chinese market, and moreover, influences the company reputation all over the world. What’s worse, this issue also reminds people of the bad treatment its Chinese workers received years ago. After the Chinese government-run media exposed all these shocking facts to the public, more and more people, social organizations and companies start to focus on these scandals on business ethic. Some even can’t help asking if it is the twist for Apple.

However, before things are getting even worse, Apple CEO Tim Cook apologized to Chinese customers on its distinct warranty policy on Monday. He announced that Apple would correct its warranty policy to be the one admitted according to Chinese laws and also give them the same solution to their products as they do in the other countries. Nonetheless, it is far away from enough. People’s dissatisfactory against Apple hasn’t been eliminated yet. Also, as China has become the second largest and most potential market for Apple, where factories still manufacture its products, Apple still face the huge problem of its reeeeeally cheap but illegal Chinese labors. We can also foresee that Apple will face a lot more problems before further developing its Chinese market.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/02/technology/apples-chief-tim-cook-apologizes-to-china-over-warranty-policy.html?_r=0

The most shocking issue appealed to a huge number of people as Microsoft bought Nokia in a bid of 7.2 billion. This, however, indicated that Nokia’s high-end strategy failed to bring it new customers and it in fact gradually faded from people’s eyesight as a Smartphone brand, instead, Microsoft took over its line.

Years ago, Nokia started to step out of the box and tried to look for something new, which was different from the trend. It used new Smartphone systems like Symbian and Windows phone8, which, being the totally new things that hard to be accepted by people. However, it believed that the new things would definitely bring them new opportunities to further develop the market. Nevertheless, it finally turned out to be wrong. It failed in its positioning on using the new systems to attract people’s attention, which supposed to depend on people’s preferences, and finally, the wrong position led to the acquisition from Microsoft. However, it will still benefit Nokia, as it provides Nokia a chance to reflect and urge it to focus on what it owns now and leads it back to a correct way of positioning. Also, as a Smartphone brand, Nokia’s devices business has gone, instead, it now focuses in its three new technologies: NSN, HERE and Advanced Technologies, which may be a huge hit in these fields.

This actually indicates that a good position to a company, including marketing, strategies and so on, is a very essential part.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/03/us-microsoft-nokia-idUSBRE98202V20130903

Recently, there is a hot advertisement on Amazon that attracted people’s attention.

Amazon posted a new advertisement for kindle, in which, it ironically indicated that the total price of 3 kindles is still cheaper than an ipad. Also, the same situation happened when Samsung and other electronic companies did the same thing to Apple.

It is actually an approach to stand out in the fierce competitions by inserting an impressive concept that kindles are much cheaper than ipads. Amazon and Samsung adopted this method to treat Apple because it stands most of the first place in the field of electronic products as a biggest competitor to all other companies.

According to Al Ries and Jack Trout’s theory, the most efficient way to appeal to the bulk of the customers is to be the first in the field. Thus, it is reasonable to explain why Kindle and Samsung adopted such cruel method. They did this as they want to step out an unique impression in people’s mind to be the first (eg. in the field of price) and by doing so, they hope that they can pull Apple down and take the place of it.

This is how they deal with the information overloaded in people’s mind and how they get into people’s mind.

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