10 Things You Can Learn From Apple Stores

The article featured here explains how Apple has unlocked the secrets to building great customer loyalty. On their list of the top 10 things your company should be doing are: Stop selling things, hire for smiles, celebrate diversity, empower employees, sell the benefit and last but not least appeal to the buying brain (along with some others). Some of these are self explanatory but others may leave you scratching your head a little. Let me break it down for you.

1. Stop Selling Things: Steve Jobs first started Apple with a vision not "just another way to increase market shares." Most companies tend to center their vision around "selling more stuff" but that isn't very inspiring to others, including customers, so Apple focuses on a different route.

2. Hire for Smiles: Apples employees are simply hired, trained, motivated and taught to create memorable experiences for every customer that walks through their door. The store values a "magnetic" personality just as much as a person's technical proficiency.

3. Celebrate Diversity: Almost everything that's on the list of "not to hire" for another company are on the list of "TO hire" for Apple Stores. Tattoos, obscene hair, piercings, etc. are all acceptable for Apple employees in order to reflect the diversity of their customers within their workers. In short, the company doesn't look for people that fits a mold.

4. Empower Employees: Employees at Apple stores are encouraged to take their time with their customers. Talking about completely unrelated things like golfing or kids is totally acceptable because it promotes a great experience and essentially, that's all that matters.

5. Sell the Benefit: Employees at Apple are taught to sell the benefit of a product rather than just selling the product itself. They are encouraged to tailor to each separate customer. For instance, when someone with kids comes in asking about the iPad, make the kids love it by letting them play with an in-store model which will show the customer a benefit of the product.

6.Appeal to the Buying Brain: Essentially this just means that a store should be spacious, clean, organized, well-lit, etc. because the brain will consume more energy if the store environment is messy or cluttered.

Do you think Apple is on the right track? If other businesses were to follow suit do you think they would do better in sales? ...Would our expectations change?

In Response to Georgianne

Do Brazilian Blowout Products need to update their current product labeling and provide salons and product users with clearer, detailed and more truthful information about their products and how to use them safely than they are providing now?
I think that many of these products are using deceptive labeling, and their advertising could be misleading.  Do you agree?


I think that it's wrong for companies to hide ingredients on labels, especially when they could be really bad for our health like in foods, shampoos and beauty products. Things like this should be regulated. I think that because this scandal has hit the news, actions should be taken to prevent this from happening in the future and to reprimand the companies who are using Formaldehyde and other harmful chemicals in their products.


What would this type of interference from the government do to those companies that are using harmful ingredients? To their brand, reputation? What would they have to change in their marketing plan to adjust to the change?

April Fools

Some companies like Google, Skype and Axe (just to name a few) aired some April Fool's day ads for some pretty cool, but fake products. Axe came up with this ad for the Lynx Spray App. An app which you can scroll through colognes and instantly spray your choice scent directly from your phone. You can view the video below:

Ads like these are often funny and entertaining and they indirectly market a product with  a slightly different name (like Lynx instead of Axe) which is great for those who know the particular product is fake. This is because the company is making money off the ads from those consumers who know that the product being marketed is actually something different than what is being shown. But for those who have no idea that these products are fake, I don't think that they would be helping the company make any profits. Perhaps the companies could be focusing their marketing on something other than fake ads... Or maybe these companies have a lot of spare money floating around.

 

Can you see any issues for the companies which choose to air these April Fool's ads? Are there any benefits?

Facebook as a Marketing Tool

According to surverybuilder.com web users spend more time on Facebook than they do on other sites like Google and Facebook advertising has increased recently. The features that Facebook has such as a complete profile of information on its users, marketers can target specific ads to specific people. Using Facebook for advertising is also pretty cheap, cheaper than Google in fact. Facebook has become a great tool for not only networking but marketing for all sorts of businesses.


Do you think that Facebook will continue to grow as a marketing tool?

In Response to Kathleen Johnson

Kraft Attempting to Rebrand International Image
Can anyone think of any other re-branding fails? Does anyone think it is a good idea to change their international name?


I think that Kraft should keep their brand name because of how old it is. I think that with the change will come a lot of negativity for the company and confusion for its customers. There is nothing but positivity toward this very old brand, so why should they change the brand name? If there were negativity toward the brand I could understand wanting to wipe the slate clean and move on.. seeing as not everyone would get the memo that a new brand is actually an old brand with a new name. But with Kraft, I don't think this drastic of a change is worth it, especially with the scandal and criticism that resulted when they announced their plans to re-brand.
An example of a re-branding fail is Tropicana Orange Juice by Pepsi-Co. which resulted in 20% drop in sales. So as you can see, when criticism results from a re-branding change, there can be serious consequences.


Why not change the brand name in the United States but everywhere else in the world?

Sterling Parfums

In March of 2011 Sterling Parfums officially launched three new fragrance brands, the Armaf collection, the Estiara collection and the Cosmo collection, all at the same time. Firstly the Armaf collection is a premium fragrance targeted toward mid to high level customers. Secondly the Estiara collection which is targeted to professionals and is chic and affordable. Thirdly the Cosmo collection which is an assortment of trendy and affordable fragrances designed for the mass market.
All of these new brands were developed with the companies target market in mind. They also closely collaborated with their clients to come up with the perfect fragrances. The company is ready to move into a global level so that they can cater to a more diverse group of customers.


The company is expanding and has obviously put a lot of thought into their expansion. Do you think that releasing all three fragrances at the same time was a smart move? ..Or do you think it would have been more beneficial for the fragrances to be released separately if even by only a couple of weeks?

In Response to Aislynn Sherry

Above the Influence Campaigns
Which campaign do you think is more successful? Or will be more successful? Do you think these ads are useful and preventative at all?


I agree that the Above the Influence commercials have changed, pretty drastically since they first started airing. I specifically remember the commercials with the dog talking to the human telling him he shouldn't do drugs and the person would always make some excuse like "I can stop whenever I want". Or that commercial that was this girl sunken into the couch. These commercials were so negative and even funny that they didn't sink in to the viewers.. I don't think their point was really getting across. I cannot recall seeing commercials about teens doing things in the community rather than doing drugs, but it definitely sounds like it will be more successful. Teens like to rebel, and if a commercial is showing them drugs and alcohol are bad, then they're going to want to do them. Overall, I think that both commercials used in unison would be preventative and helpful because both sides are being shown.


Do you think the new commercials will be more successful because they are positive rather than negative?