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Recommended: creating brand equity
Creative Advertising: Sunday Communications Limited
Business Situation of Sunday
When Sunday was launched, the market was not favorable to it at all. Hong Kong was a very mature market. There were already six mobile phone operators who competed very fiercely in the small market. They provided different tariffs and services to customers. When the mobile number portability was introduced in March 1999, competition for subscribers became open to every player. Under this circumstance, Sunday entered the market successfully with an innovative approach to branding and promotion. It was positioned as a lifestyle brand and focused on brand building rather than pursuing to increase market share. Sunday became a standout brand with a high level of brand awareness, which led to its high ARPU and the high portion of locked-up subscribers.
With regards to customers, 86% of the population owns one or more mobile phone in Hong Kong. They were willing to spend money on their next mobile phone and pioneers or early adopters of the latest hi-tech gadgets. They are very open to new brands and technology. Also, they place more emphasis on handset appearance than customers in other Asian countries. In addition, more and more young people have become mobile phone owners. More than one fourth (29%) children between six to fifteen have a cellular phone, which is higher than the regional average of 12%. Consumers in Hong Kong are very informed decision makers, so brand and image become very important to them.
Sunday’s Communication Objectives
Despite its success, Sunday claimed a mere 9.8% of the market in 2000 and 8.3% in 2005. Although total number of subscribers continued to increase year to year, average revenue per user had been declining since 2001. Their aggressive branding strategies including eye-catching advertisements, alliance marketing and joint promotions were very effective in the first place, but they became stale and trite as many copycats followed. Therefore, Sunday should find the ways to keep their innovative, independent brand image as well as to increase market share and the number of subscribers, and to maintain lock-up subscribers.
Sources of Sunday’s brand equity and their importance
Brand equity is the added value a given brand name gives to a product beyond the functional benefits provided. For Sunday, several factors contributed to building its strong brand equity, such as the creativity and originality of the ads, the ability to break the taboos and make noises. Innovative, independent, and unconventional images helped to build Sunday as well.
Mobile is the first order priority device for access because people are connecting with others, finding entertainment, and doing business—all with smart phones. The prices of mobile phones are never over $1,000 in today’s world. They are affordable and accessible. As the result of the changes the worldwide and national business environment has undergone, people own 1-2 cell phones on average. However, the mobile markets in US seems to have been saturated.
Definition; - “brand equity is the added value endowed on products and services. It may be reflected in the way consumer think, feel, and act with respect to the brand, as well as in the price, market share and profitability the brand commands.”(Kolter and Keller.2012, p265) according to the case study of Holland and Barrett, brand equity refers to high brand value, brand with high value equity means, H&B has the ability to create some sort of positiv...
The mobile phone retail industry is characterized by disruptive technological innovation such that retailers have to stock the latest phones to attract customers. By exploiting the e-commerce platform and the high street retail experience Phone 4u remains technologically ahead or at par with its fierce competitors. 3G network has become popular due to its advanced feature and speed; already plans are underway to roll out the 4G network that will be more superior to the 3G network. The tech-savvy young Britons drive the demand for the advanced internet networks. Failure to keep in touch with the latest technology will have adverse effects on Phone 4u because it will cede market control to technologically confident rivals such as Apple Store.
On average, Americans are exposed to over 362 minutes of advertising per day as stated in the article “New Research Sheds Light on Daily Ad Exposures” by Sheree Johnson. Advertisements lasting one to two minutes, implies Americans are being exposed to more advertisements than anything else. Advertisements are not able to be escaped and are used to pursue consumers into buying products they might not even need. This can be a reliable technique by marketers because consumers fall into what the advertisements are saying. Increasing advertisement exposure to consumers per day allows marketers, such as Diet Coke a more valuable beverage company because their advertisements are simple, making them more effective.
The aforementioned high barriers to entry challenge the top four cellular-service providers. The high fixed costs cause companies to want to acquire as many customers as possible to spread the fixed costs, and thus reduce overall costs. High competition means that customers can take advantage of competitive pricing. Additionally, customers have the advantage of almost non-existent switching costs once their contracts expire. However, customers realistically only have four cellular-service providers to choose from, so customers only have moderate buying power. The aspect that makes the cellular industry an attractive target for Virgin is that there are virtually no threats of substitute products. Once a company establishes itself, the potential for profits is high, but gaining a foothold is difficult. Virgin Mobile proposes that entering into an untapped youth market will help establish brand. Subsequently, it is vital that Virgin formulates their pricing strategy in such a way that will attract and retain a young demographic.
According to the Nielson 2010 Media Industry Facts, “223 million people in the United States are cell phone users, with 16.7 million being web users and 18% being smartphone consumers respectively” (Tippin, 2010). Global cell phone users have increased with the highest being in the Asia-Pacific region over the past decade. Those companies dominating the market in cell and smartphone use are in orientation of greatest to least: Nokia, Samsung, LG, Motorola, and Sony Ericson (Tippin, 2010). The Sonic 1000, desires to reach the status of these cell and smartphone brands listed above. However, new research associated with these phone brands shows greatest competition with the Android phones, Blackberry’s, and iPhones. These phone types have been able to appeal to the markets of young business professionals, medical consumers, college, and high school students due to its various applications, social networking ...
...r an aggressive promotion criteria to ensure that the company captures new customers in the monopolized areas. In a bid to eradicate monopolization, there was a need to compete with competing organization on the current trends. An analysis of recent trends conducted to determine the customers’ preferred specifications in a mobile phone revealed a growing tendency of android phones. These gives rise to the need of investment in android mobile phones to keep up with the changing trends. It will involve scrutiny of various competing products and ensure that we start production of the android phones to have a competitive edge in the telecommunication market.
Singapore have higher percentage of mobile and Internet penetration rates of about 155% and 85% respectively (IDA, 2017). Customers who accept or used to technology often use Internet as their first medium of research for products before making the decision to buy them. This essential process adds as an advantage to Google. To further optimise the outreach its services to mobile users, Google launched mobile operating system called Android which currently secured close to half of the mobile market share according to comScore (2014), making it major factor for marketers to advertise their products with Google.
The mobile phone market is constantly moving forward; the pace of change and development is accelerating. Consumers' desire for better products is intensifying. To move the market forward, Vodafone is continually developing new services which, until they are there, are often beyond the average customer's imagination. Vodafone is well placed to benefit from these developments. As a global telecommunications company, Vodafone benefits from the advantages of operating across a range of markets which enables them to benefit from huge cost savings resulting from dealing with single suppliers worldwide for example.
Companies use a collection of brand equities to represent their products in the market (Voolnes, 2012). Brand equity refers to the commercial value that is derived from the perception of consumers on any given brand name of particular products in the market as opposed to the product itself. Ataman (2003) notes that the effect to the consumer is in the brand name and not the product itself. Companies use logos, trademarks and a collection of other symbols to present this information to the customers. The use of these symbols is meant to try and capture the customer mindset so that they can be thinking about the company products at all times through the items they possess at home (Estes, Gibbert, Guest, & Mazursk, 2012). This can well be explained by use of the customer-based brand equity model that brings together the requirements for a publicly renowned brand in the market.
There is a slowdown in sales of mobile handsets, in some markets like the UK, as the mature part of the product lifecycle is reached. Customers are exposed to a barrage of different images and messages by mobile phone companies, as the competition gets tougher. Vodafone appeals to new customers and aims to keep its existing ones by emphasising the uniqueness of the brand.
(Keller, 1991, 1993) Brand equity was conceptualized as consisting of consumers′ brand associations that include brand awareness, knowledge and image As stated earlier, brand equity is regarded as consisting of two components – brand strength and brand value.
This report has been analysed on the marketing segment and environment of Samsung Galaxy Alpha (S.G.A) smartphone in U.K. The Samsung Galaxy Alpha was the sleekest smartphone ever with high quality metal finish and luxury feel. The company launched the product in the streets of all across Britain on 12th January 2014. Some key features of the phones which are regarded as the innovative nature such as:
The year is 2014, the markets are changing constantly, and they always have to meet the needs of new consumers as well as old consumers. Mobile telephones have been in the retail and wholesale business for quite some time, and are only evolving from here on out. There are things that these cell phones can bring us that are major benefits in our everyday lives. Cell phones bring us maps, radios, address books, and even flashlights now. Cell phones have taken shape from a huge portable device to a more convenient thin device that can fit in your pocket. With time in any consumer market, the consumer adapts to the technology that makes their life easier. The constant innovation of cell phones has led us to smart phones, and these smart phones are capable of putting certain businesses out of the market. Businesses that engineered PDAs in the past were met with challenges because smart phones are able to match their productivity. Land lines have become useless since everyone can afford a mobile device now. Listening to music has also switched from a traditional CD Player/MP3 Player to an everyday smart phone.
Nowadays, advertising is a very big business. Very often is the major means of competing among firms. Furthermore, supporters of advertising claim that it brings specific benefits for consumers.