Marketing Management

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 Tunis Business School

Paper 2

Principles of Marketing
Topic

Apple Brand: Customer satisfaction survey study

Prepared by:
Abderahman Rejeb

Supervised by Ms.:

Izzudin Busnaina

Instructor of Marketing Management

Fall semester 2014

Academic year: 2014 - 2015

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 Acknowledgements

Firstly, we would like to express

our gratitude to Mr. Izzudin
Busnaina who provided us with
clear guidelines of this paper and
helped to provide us with the
translation of the survey
questions into Arabic. We
greatly appreciate his exemplary
support and commitment and we
would not surely complete this
paper and get a large poll of
respondents without his
consistent advice.

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 Executive Summary

This paper examined the community’s interest and opinion about

Smartphones namely the iPhones.

The questionnaire was designed to assess the interest, satisfaction degree,

and limitation in Apple brand. To ensure a wide variety of responses, the
survey was distributed and shared electronically through Facebook.

Abstract

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Table of content
I. Introduction : ........................................................................................................................ 7

II. Primary Research details and findings………………………………………………….....9

1. Primary Research details ……………………………………………………………...9

 Research procedures ………………………………………………………….9
 Research methodology………………………………………………………..9
 Validity……………………………………………………………………….10
2. Results and findings ………………………………………………………………….11
 Demographics ……………………………………………………………….11
 Brand users and brand awareness……………………………………………12
 Brand loyalty………………………………………………………………...13
 Price and brand association …………………………………………………13
 The perceived quality ……………………………………………………….14
 Satisfaction…………………………………………………………………..15
 Brand personality……………………………………………………………15

III. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………17

References…………………………………………………………………………………………….18

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List of Tables:

Figure 1: Questionnaire and development process ………………………………………………………..9

Figure 2: Apple brand VS Gender …………………………………………………………………………11

Figure 3: Apple brand segmented by Age………………………………………………………………….12

Figure 4: The brands owned by respondents (or the latest they own)…………………………………....12

Figure 5: "I would choose my current smartphone brand even if other brand has the same functionality
as my current smartphones"………………………………………………………………………………..13

Figure 6: "My smartphone is a good value for the money I paid"……………………………………….13

Figure 7: "Other people judge you by the kind of the smartphone you use"…………….……………...14

Figure 8: "The quality of my smartphone is good"…………………………………………….…………14

Figure 9: "I would recommend my IPhone to my friends"………………….............................................15

Figure 10: Apple brand personality………………………………………………………………………..15

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 I. Introduction :

A
s Apple’s products took part in the continuous and unpredictable technological
advancements, its products and notably the iPhones leapfrog other substitutes and other
technological gadgets to let Apple in a winner-takes-all market position. These small
hand held devices have so much to offer to customers (Mackenzie, 2011).

The purpose of our primary research is to gauge the interest of people, their conception and the
degree of their satisfaction with the iPhones. The primary objective of this field study is to identify
the brand components of Apple and to show how its product attributes, meaning the iPhones,
perceived by customers in their decision making process of buying a particular brand of
smartphones. A good knowledge of our respondents' needs and preferences corresponding to
smartphones would help us understand their brand knowledge, awareness and loyalty. Also, this will
give us a clue about the importance of the brand name and identity in shaping the consumer brand
preference.

Regarding of the paper's purpose and to put in evidence the consumer's perceived value of the Apple
brand, we have chosen to do our primary research using a questionnaire since it suits mostly the
survey. In fact, the survey research is the most widely used method to collect primary data. It is
characterized by flexibility and it help to obtain different kinds of information in many different
situations (Kotler et al., 2005, 119). In addition, the major reason for choosing this method is based
essentially on one special advantage; it is the absence of subjectivity. Consequently, our opinions
will not be included in the respondents' answers formulation. The questionnaire contains uniform
questions and there is no bias. However, it's very challenging to achieve the goal of no-bias by some
other research methods, such as focus group discussion or in-depth interview since the verbal clues
and real-time discussion by the researcher would impact and shape the attitudes of answerers to a
certain extent.

The survey involves 110 participants. They range in age interval from 15 years-old to 40 years-old.
The respondents are mainly students from Tunis Business School. They represent different
nationalities including Tunisians and Moroccans, Syrians, Palestinians …etc. The majority of
participants belong to the middle-class which includes the students and university officers. The mean
participant’s age lied between 20 years-old and 25 years-old. The sample represents the persons who
possess iPhones or other brands and those who are conversant with Apple brand and products. The
questionnaire design and distribution followed data analyzing of population shifts and also trends.
The survey was performed during the period between 5th and 9th October, 2014. The questionnaire
was distributed to the students of the university using Google Docs and Facebook. The participants

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were informed of the general purpose of the research objectives and they voluntarily and
anonymously invited to answer the questionnaires. Besides, they were asked to spread and share the
questionnaire by inviting their Facebook friends to take part in the research because this technique
was seemed very useful for inviting a large number of Facebook users effectively and hastily.
Random sampling method did not work in this case because there are privacy settings of the
Facebook profiles. Consequently, it was necessary to invite respondents (shared friends of Facebook
users) to like the page, join some Facebook groups and fill the survey.

The questionnaire was spread electronically over a total of 5 days during the collection period. This
period was chosen as it was seen as too early for the deadline of paper submission (30/10/2014) and
the time span is large to get as much as we could answers and data that have been easily collected
without being under any time pressure. The survey questionnaire forms were developed based on
similar survey which had been undertaken in previous years. The survey was carried out primarily
with English and accompanied with a translation into Arabic language in order to facilitate the
respondents’ responses and to avoid being limited to certain demographics. Research was also
undertaken on similar surveys which had been conducted internationally. Due to the resemblance in
terminology between the researches handling with the similar topic, one survey form was produced.
A pilot survey was undertaken during a single day in October 4th, 2014 to test the method proposed
for undertaking the survey; test the understanding of the questions and to determine the likely
response rates.

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II. Primary research details and findings :

1. Primary Research details:

 Research procedures:

The data were collected electronically

through Facebook and using Google Docs
since they are both more advantageous in
terms of convenience (time, geographical
dispersion of location and mobility for both:
the group members of the research and the
respondents) and as they are less obstructive
(absence of participant effects) to the
conductors of the research project. The
survey was undertaken during 5 days in
October, it was distributed in one main
Facebook group entitled “Sophomore
students TBS” and other groups. This allows
getting very high response number equal to
110 participants who answered all the survey
questions. To increase the response rate, a
full questionnaire development process was
undertaken.

Figure 1 : Questionnaire and development process

 Research Methodology

The questionnaire consists altogether of close ended questions to find the precise required
information and exhibit to the respondents the freedom of choice in order to save their time when
filling the survey, which sometimes follows rating scale and multiple choice questions. The
questionnaire was divided into two parts. The first part included information about the socio-
demographic profile of the participants (gender and age). The second part of the questionnaire is
designed according to the previous model mentioned in the first paper notably the original Keller
model. It will be dedicated to determine the brand recognition of Apple in the level of iPhones and in
term of to what extent Tunisian youths know about the Apple brand (brand awareness) in addition to
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their opinions about the brand as reflected by brand association held in target consumer's memory
(brand image). By starting from this model, we will demonstrate the importance of the marketing
mix to help building the Apple brand and we will shed the light upon the branding strategy that helps
the company to gain a sustainable competitive edge at the level of its product, price, place and
promotion.

 Validity:

This section provides the readers with the assessment of the data collection process implemented
regarding the primary research. It outlines also the evaluation of the quality of the primary data. To
ensure the effectiveness of this study, each question in the questionnaire was designed purposefully
to serve the concepts which were used in the conceptual framework of this research study, as shown
in table 1 underneath:

No Concept Questions The purpose of the question used.

Demographic Gender? As stated by University of Southern California (2012), when
the market is divided into sub-groups, this is called market
questions Age? segmentation. These questions are used to determine the major
targets of Apple iPhones. We have focused just on two
demographic aspects as they are the major motivator for the
company to create different product and manage effectively
the segments according to its interests.
Filter Have you ever owned an This question is used to determine if the respondent is familiar
Question Apple Smartphone? with Apple iPhones or not. Otherwise speaking, this question
analyzes the brand awareness of the respondents.

1. Brand Which of the following This question is used to know which kind of Smartphone brand
users brands do you own today (or the respondent is using or have used.
the latest you own)?

2. Do you agree with the following statements, please consider: on a scale from 1 to 5 where 1 is the
strongly disagree and 5 is strongly agree?

Brand Value
“Apple is a strong brand” This question is used to measure the strength of the Apple
brand, as mentioned by Aaker (1996) strong brands are brands
that have strong brand value where customers associate this
brand to be strong.

“I would choose my current
Brand Loyalty Smartphone brand even if
the other brands has the
same functionality as my
current Smartphone”
“I will switch to another
brand when purchasing a
new Smartphone”
These questions were designed to measure the respondents’
loyalty towards the Smartphone brand that they are holding.
According to Keller (1998, p.54) brand loyalty is usually used
to describe the frequent similar purchase behavior of a
customer towards certain specific brand. The brand loyalty is
measured when customer purchases the product of a certain
brand despite that other competitors brands have the same
product with the same features.

“I consider myself to be

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 Price “My Smartphone is a good This question aims to measure the Smartphone value for
value for the money I paid” money, if the customer thinks that the product is worthy of the
money or price they paid for.

Brand “Other people judge me by This question is designed to ascertain how Smartphone are
Association the kind of Smartphone I associated with brand, hence many people associate brand
use” with certain kind of class or social group.

Perceived “The quality of my
Quality Smartphone is good ”
“My Smartphone brand is
more than just a product for
me”
Satisfaction “I would recommend my
Smartphone brand to my
friends”
This question is used to measure the level of student perceived
quality of Smartphone brand, since customers are contented
with a product when the product quality is good.
Satisfaction is measured when customers are satisfied with
the product to the extent that they recommended to their
friends and acquaintances.

Brand Identity
Brand Sincerity Based on Big Five Model of Aaker’s (1991, p. 24), each one of
Personality these personality traits was incorporated in one question to
Excitement identify the characteristics of a given smartphone brand.
Ruggedness

Competence
Sophisticated

2. Results and Findings:

 Demographics:

53.6% of the respondents were female and 46.4% were male. Weighting the sample's responses to
overcome this minor bias, we noticed that Apple has a greater penetration in women (Figure. 2)

Figure 2: Apple brand VS Gender

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Most of the respondents, in turn, were aged between 20 and 25 years old (75.5%) and others
where age remarkably lied between 15-20 years old (12.7%) and 25-30 years (8.2%).
Normalizing again, in order to overcome the bias in ages, we present the distribution according
age in figure 3. Apple has almost inconsistent distribution among ages, it is being considerably
more preferred by younger segments.

Figure 3: Apple brand segmented by Age

 Brand Users and brand awareness:

- Have you ever owned an Apple smartphones and which kind of brands do you own today (or
the latest you own)?

In regards to the distribution of respondents among the students of Tunis Business School, 40.9% of
the respondents did not possess iPhones and 59.1% of them have actually iPhones or they have
owned them in the past. According to the data obtained from the survey, the leading brand in
smartphones is Apple since have 42.1% of the respondents while Samsung maintains 20.7% of the
respondents and 14.9% and the rest of participants do own other brands. Consequently, this implies
that Apple has more brand users in our sample than the others and the brand awareness stems from
the fact that respondents could easily recall the brand with its logo and name as shown in details in
figure 4:

Figure 4: The brands owned by respondents (or the latest they own)

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  Brand loyalty:

{}

Figure 5: "I would choose my current smartphone brand even if other brand has the same
functionality as my current smartphones"

As shown in Figure 5, Apple commands a high brand loyalty. 23.6 % of the respondent agreed and
26.4% strongly agreed that they would stick to Apple. According to Aaker (1991, 87) these
consumers are ranked on the fourth level of brand loyalty because the preference for the brand is
based on the symbol, previous experience, or the logo of the company. They are not vulnerable to the
competitors or other substitute brands. The theoretical significance of this implies that Apple’s
iPhones have higher customer loyalty and a strong brand value according to 80.9% of respondents.
Also, 57.3 % of the respondents showed their intention of not switching Apple brand when
purchasing another new smartphones, 20% choose to be neutral and the rest agree to renew the
experience with other brands. Aaker (1991, 48) notes that a measure of brand loyalty is reflected in
the additional price that customers would be willing to pay to obtain their brand.

 Price and Brand Association:

{}

Figure 6: "My smartphone is a good value for the money I paid"

When participants were asked if their smartphones are good value for the money they paid, half of
Apple smartphone holders agreed (50.9%) and 28.2% of them strongly agreed with the statement.
12.7% of respondents chose to be neutral and the rest of the poll disagree about the given statement.
This clearly demonstrates that Apple consumers are more satisfied with the price of their
smartphones with respect to its value.

{}

Figure 7: "Other people judge you by the kind of the smartphone you use"

According to Aaker, premium price reinforces the perceived quality, meaning that high price signals
high quality to the customers. Although Apple is well- known by premium price smartphones and it
wants to be associated with high class brand of smartphones by charging high prices on iPhones,
only 30% of our respondents agreed about the association of Apple's product to their customers'
personality. 31.8 % were neutral to this fact and 38.2% disagreed about having an iPhone is a way of
showing someone's social status.

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  The perceived quality:

{}

Figure 8: "The quality of my smartphone is good"

Regarding this aspect, respondents were asked if the quality of their iPhones is good in order to
ensure the perceived quality of their Smartphones. As shown in figure 8, 48.2% of respondents
agreed, 39.1 % strongly agreed and 12.7 % of respondents were split between being neutral and
opposing. Apple offers a high perceive quality to its customers. The perceived quality meets the
customer’s perception of the overall quality or the superiority of a product or service with respect to
its intended purpose, relative to alternative (Aaker, 1991, 85). The reason for high perceived quality
of Apple could be accredited to Apple differentiation and positioning of it products. Apple is famous
for its creativity and innovation and in giving the consumers reason to buy their products.

 Satisfaction:

{}

Figure 9: "I would recommend my IPhone to my friends"

The findings from figure 9 exhibit that Apple Smartphones’ users are generally satisfied with the
product and would recommend it to their friends. Respondent were asked if they would
recommend their Smartphone brand to their friends, 54.5% confirmed that they would (20% strongly
agreed, 34.5% agreed) while 25.5% are Indifferent and 20 % would not recommend it to their friends
(12.7% strongly disagreed and 7.3% disagree).

 Brand personality:

{}

Figure 10: Apple brand personality

As figure 10 above, the empirical data obtained suggest that of all the five personality traits that are
associated with the Apple Smartphones, competence has the highest score. 56.4% of the respondents
ascribed competence personality trait to Apple iPhones. The significance of this score reflects how
important competence in brand personality of iPhones.

Sophistication scores the second highest respondents percentage (52.7%). It means that they consider
Apple iPhones as a portrayal of aspirational luxury. IPhones according to them are glamorous,
seducing and smooth products.

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Ruggedness scores the third with 31.8% of respondents agreeing that smartphones features are strong
and resilient. Empirical data obtained surprisingly shows 24.5% of respondents consider that
iPhones personality excitement characteristics typified by its ability to cope with imaginativeness,
trendiness and fashionableness. 13.6% of respondents agree about the sincerity of the brand.

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III. Conclusion :
The primary research explores the importance of Apple brand in general and of iPhones in particular
within the Tunisian community. After having analyzed the survey statistics and output we come to
different conclusions. First, according to the respondents’ answers we could say that Apple has
relatively high strong brand within Tunisian students and other international students. This is
demonstrated by customers' satisfaction and confidence in choosing Apple brand and iPhones.

In addition, students of Tunis Business School choose smartphones on the basis of its strength. The
brand loyalty is considerably high within the poll and respondents regarded Apple as innovative
company. Thus, the premium price charged on its iPhones meets the perceived quality of the
consumers and contributes more and more to customers’ retention. The responses obtained from the
survey supports the above statement. Although Tunisians chose Apple for the reason it meets their
needs, aspirations and desires, the majority of them denied the association and the confinement of the
brand to some specific social class.

As stated earlier in the research, the purpose of this paper is to gauge the interest of Tunisians and
other international students in Apple brand in order to ensure how the brand value, loyalty and
personality are perceived by them and how this could influence their preferences to buy a particular
smartphone. Hence, we can say that respondents helped us to reach our purpose.

An interesting observation could be withdrawn from this research study is that students are more
influenced by the brand image and personality of the smartphones (notably the competence and the
sophistication). Apple may have to focus more on the brand loyalty by creating higher customer
perceived quality since it was not targeting consumers from its country of origin namely the USA.
For Apple, the country of origin represents the brand identity. It is strongly recommended that the
company should take into consideration the Tunisian market by capitalizing more and more on the
advantage of brand awareness to reinforce its brand, market positioning and drive up its sales. This
recommendation is not addressed only to Apple but it encompasses all firms operating in high-tech
industry.

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 References:

Aaker.A.D (1991). Managing Brand Equity; Capitalizing On the Value of a Brand Name, the Free
Press, New York.

Ghauri, P and Gronhaug, K. (2005) “Research Methods in Business Studies: A practical Guide”.
[3rd edition], Pearson Education Limited.

Mackenzie, R. (2011, April). Retrieved 06 20, 2012, from www.quora.com:

http://www.quora.com/Rob-Mackenzie/Posts/How-consumers-with-smartphones-will-impact-
theretail-experience

University of Southern California (2010). Segmentation, targeting and positioning.(online).Available

at:[http://www.consumerpsychologist.com/cb_Segmentation.html Accessed: 21st September 2012]

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