Month: September 2010

Categories
Product Positioning & Branding Technology

iPhone 4G: Good Brand Reputation Leads to Overpricing?

Apple products are “all the rage” amongst young and old: high school students keep iPod Nano’s or Touch’s in their pocket to deter boredom; university students have either iPad’s to read eBooks or a Macbook Pro’s to take notes on (sometimes even both); adults collect every generation of the iPhone.

"The Family"

Without a doubt, iPhones are fast, convenient, and aesthetically appealing. However, for equivalent pricing or less and the same or better specs, there are many alternative smartphones that are less popular merely because they lack Apple’s brand reputation (related video recently receiving more than 8.8 million hits). Such are the Samsung Epic 4G and HTC Evo 4G.

"The Epic Evo"These devices both support the fast Sprint network and customizable Android operating system. Both phones have a wider screen than the iPhone and better resolution cameras/VGA’s.

The Samsung Epic offers an AMOLED screen equivalent to iPhone’s retina display; plus, it sports a 1500mAH battery which allows for a longer battery life. Furthermore, the Epic provides a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. Also, a new input method for Android smartphones is Swype, which set the Guinness World Record for fastest texting ever.

Click to enlarge.
A very cool photo of Steve Jobbs made using Apple Products.

So what’s the difference?

Essentially, good marketing. Apple establishes a strong emotional connection with its advertisements, contributing to user loyalty.

Categories
Business Ethics

Business Ethics: Nestle Milk Misleading with Melamine?

DURING the September of 2008, a huge scandal broke. The parents of a baby Chinese boy, whom had developed kidney stones after drinking milk powder manufactured in China, filed a lawsuit against Sanlu (biggest  producer of milk powder in China) for the damage to their son’s health (seeking a $22,000 compensation).

Baby checked for kidney stones in China (click any picture for source link)

The article by National Post, “More than 54,000 affected by China milk scandal,” reports of four infant deaths attributed to the chemical additive, not to mention more than a hundred with other serious conditions. The number climbed to an estimate of 300,000 victims and 13 infant deaths.

Milk powder is dumped in protest

In this ordeal, Nestle (Northeastern China manufacturer) was also found guilty of having minor levels of melamine in its milk powder products (source: Taiwan says melamine found in Nestle milk powders). So why would a such a big and renowned company insert harmful additives “traditionally used to create durable dishware and clear resins” into foods consumed by infants?

Apparently, there is more reason to boycott Nestle...?

Nestle’s contemptible reason was to falsify food quality checks of water-downed milk by  increase nutrient and protein levels with nitrogen-rich melamine.  Now let’s take a look at Nestle Canada’s vision:

Our vision is to be the leading nutrition, health and wellness company in Canada bringing Good Food, Good Life to Canadians throughout their lives.

Is this not a drastic and outrageous contrast? The companies abused the public’s trust in their brand name and have harmed tens of thousands of infants by limiting materials for the benefit of, well, conserving money alone… and they are still up and running.

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