Apple Alternative Marketing: Insufficient Capacity + Hungry Marketing + Cattle

“Wow, you can get a white iPhone 4.” At the entrance of the Sanlitun store in Beijing, the Mark who lined up to buy the iPad 2 took a white iPhone 4 and how many times he had received such praise. "A lot of my friends are particularly envious of me." Mark said that more and more people are proud to own an iPhone 4 or iPad.

On May 6, Apple's second-generation tablet iPad2 began selling in Beijing and Shanghai. The purchase team of nearly 1,000 people began to appear on the evening of the 5th. "The increase of 200 to 500 yuan will save you 3 hours of waiting time." On the morning of the 6th, there was a public sale of yellow cattle. "The iPad2 shipped from these stores is expected to have three-fourths of the hands of cattle in the country," said one person who has long been concerned about Apple.

On the morning of the 7th, the clash between an ox and an apple store has caused the escalation of conflicts between the two sides for a long time. On the same day, a fight broke out in front of the Apple Store in Sanlitun. A foreign man rushed out of the store and was struggling with a man who was lining up. Two others were also taken in. After the incident, the three injured were taken to the hospital. The incident caused a broken glass door in the Apple store and the store was closed.

For this reason, some comments suggest that “crazy” and “robbing” can reflect the taste and value of China’s “fruit powder”. Does Apple only rely on hunger marketing to demonstrate its "excellent" user experience? The next day, Apple's official store announced the lifting of the purchase restriction on iPad2.

"This is obviously a new issue that Apple has encountered in China. The Cattle Drum Party is not Apple's strategic choice, but in the current situation of insufficient supply, Apple must also recognize the existence of the Cattle." Senior veteran of the domestic marketing industry, Shanghai Bogai Enterprise Management According to Gao Jianfeng, a managing director of Consulting Co., Ltd., Apple has to rethink hunger marketing. The best grasp of fire should be seven-point full and three-star hungry.

Unique marketing curve: "Insufficient productivity, hunger, marketing, oxen, stocks"

“The cattle are not only in China, but on the second day of the iPad2 market in the US market, consumers can only get goods from the cattle.” Resigned from Apple in late 2010, and Lisson, who is currently working in the United States, told the “China Business” reporter. He, a former Apple employee, wanted to buy white iPhone 4 and iPad 2 for his girlfriend. He only had to go to the official website to make a reservation. He had to wait two weeks. "A lot of people are Chinese cows who spend money to buy products at high prices and send them to all parts of the country."

"Even the United States can not buy, so it can not simply say that Apple is hungry marketing, Apple began from the iPhone4, the industry chain has not been able to keep up, there is insufficient supply, this is a fact." Leeson has always believed that hunger marketing is the media hype Out of the concept. “Apple started with the iPhone 4 and the manufacturing process is not the same. Apple has control over the industry chain, but whether the industry chain can effectively meet product demand is still a bottleneck. For example, the IPS screen production chain used by the iPhone 4 cannot guarantee full-scale. The quantity and quality assurance rate were low, and the foundry could not follow up on the production capacity, resulting in insufficient market supply capacity. This is the true situation of the iPhone 4 being out of stock since the end of last year."

So from the beginning of the iPhone4 in 2010 to the latest iPad2, we have seen the unique propagation curve of the global market of Apple products: the conference - the release of the listing date - waiting - listing news reports - overnight queue - officially opened - the entire line out of stock - cattle prices .

"The creation of this unique cycle cannot simply be a reason. It should have been caused by Apple's 'shortage of productive hunger for marketing oxen'.'" said Guo Zhiming, managing director of the strength media group China.

"On the market marketing methods and steps, only Jobs one person to master, no one else has this power. The specific implementation is in the headquarters, with the Chinese market a little relationship." Leeson said. "For example, many people know that Steve Jobs has a good relationship with a reporter in The New York Times. The information on these products is enough for a media to be given in advance. After that, they are well known and the effect is achieved."

John Martellaro, who has stepped down from the position of Apple’s senior marketing manager, has also issued a document stating that Apple has been implementing a marketing strategy called “controllable disclosure”, that is, planning and purposely releasing information on unreleased new products. This was once done.

This way of leaking information is very cautious in Apple. Generally speaking, an Apple employee will take the initiative to find an authoritative media reporter to chat or make phone calls after receiving instructions from the higher authorities, but he will never leave any evidence such as E-mail. In addition, this leakage will also take a variety of measures to prevent things from being investigated for accountability. Take, for example, the pre-listing report on the first generation iPad of The Wall Street Journal. For example, Walt Mossberg, the most famous columnist of the newspaper, was not involved, and the press was signed by two other reporters. If there is a problem, both reporters can push their responsibilities to each other, or they can only mean a misunderstanding in the conversation. Moreover, the news was released during the closing of the stock market on Monday night local time in order to avoid being questioned to deliberately manipulate the stock price.

Speeding up the Chinese market: Is there a paradox in hunger marketing?

"Insufficient production capacity and hunger for marketing oxen" has helped Apple's share of the Chinese market is accelerating. The news that China's Cattle’s big hits and a number of stores in Beijing and Shanghai were smashed has already made Apple's products develop into a frenzy where money can't be bought.

How important is the Chinese market for Apple? Eric Jackson, the founder and managing director of the Strategic Management Ph.D., and the Managing Director of the Zhi Zhi Fund at Columbia University in the United States, commented in the Wall Street Journal: “I think that within 18 months, the Chinese market will account for 1/3 of Apple’s revenue; By 2015, nearly half of Apple’s revenue will come from China.”

In this article, Tim Cook, Apple's chief operating officer, revealed at a recent performance conference that Apple stores in China not only have a high traffic volume but also are their most profitable stores. Beijing's Sanlitun Apple Store has even surpassed the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue in New York. Many insiders believe that the Sanlitun store's annual sales may be as high as $450 million.

In this regard, there is a paradox between the high-growth demands and the classic hunger marketing practices that Apple has been advocating.

“The market shortage can increase the brand influence. When more products reach the hands of more consumers, the consumers experience the magic in person and then produce word of mouth, which is better than the so-called hunger marketing.” Apple is very mysterious, but it is first and foremost an enterprise that needs profits to support the development and production of the next generation of products.

Gao Jianfeng believes that this time the iPad2 is listed on the Chinese market in such extreme situations as the cattle conflict, Apple will certainly have to change. The Cattle Party is not a partner of Apple at all, so Apple will increase its review of identity. In some important markets, Apple will tilt its product inventory policy.

Gao Jianfeng introduced: “The background of hunger marketing is still that the market demand is strong, and suppliers want to be able to delay the decline of the market. Therefore, adopting this way of extending the life cycle to carry out marketing work can reduce the marketing cost. The second is to create an illusion that supply is in short supply.” In China, the first to apply this and “hunger” to the extreme is the automotive industry. For example, now the BMW X5 and Audi Q5 are all increasing their prices so that cars like Land Rover Range Rover, Audi Q7, and Touareg have to increase their prices. Followed by the real estate industry, pushing small batches when pushed, resulting in a scarce situation.

Gao Jianfeng believes that hunger marketing is more suitable for some high unit prices, and it is not easy to form a single product repeated purchase industry. At the same time, products or services have a certain degree of differentiation or leading edge, and have formed a certain range of brand stickiness.

From the point of view of the product life cycle, no matter how you adjust the method, you cannot avoid the market recession. Hunger marketing essentially lengthens the entire sales cycle. Therefore, it is also necessary to replace it with new products or services before the recession. This is the reason why cars and Apple have been updated from generation to generation. Gao Jianfeng suggested that hunger marketing should also pay attention to size. "A lot of friends around me who don't use computers have started to use the iPhone 4, and many people are jokingly saying that the iPhone is going to be an arcade."

“This is unavoidable. Since the iPhone was launched three years ago, the batch of consumers must have evolved from elitist to popular. This change is also a concern for Apple.” Guo Zhiming stressed.