“A recent study by Compete Inc. asked 680 potential iPhone shoppers this question: ‘How important would each of the following be on your decision to purchase an iPhone?” The results were revealing,” Marc E. Babej and Tim Pollak report for Forbes.
• Price of the device: 81%
• Performance of the phone: 77 %
• Battery life: 76%
• Overall ease of use: 75%
• Design/look of device: 46%
• Ease of using touch screen: 45%
• Ability to synch device with music collection: 44%
• Wi-fi: 37%
• Ease of accessing e-mail: 37%
• And, in last place: The fact that Apple makes the device: 32%
Babej and Pollak write, “You mean, all the anticipation is about the actual, physical product and its features–and the Apple brand is at the bottom of the list? … Could it be that great brands are the product (no pun intended) of something other than branding? In fact, they are! What’s more, branding and great brands are made of altogether different stuff. Branding seeks to transcend tangible benefits, or even compensate for their absence. But great brands are built from the inside out, on tangible benefits. Branding seeks to create reality through perceptions, engendered by compelling communications.”
Babej and Pollak write, “Great products speak for themselves.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Nathan” for the heads up.]
Well, it’s not the features per se, but how they’re implemented. Remember, those who trash-talk the iPhone point out the features it doesn’t have.
It is NOT the features! It’s the benefits. Most smart phones have most of the same features as an iPhone, but almost none of the benefits. A feature becomes a benefit when it’s easy to use and it works the way it’s expected to!
“Could it be that great brands are the product (no pun intended) . . .”
Pun?
Pah. Amateur.
Wow, Hi Everyone, Hi Me!
I just starting typing this on my new SkyPhone Pro (with an awesome 14 TB of Deluge® Memory, I might add) and what they’re saying is true. The Antediluvian Qi chip in this thing opens up a hole in time!
I’m not sure if the stock is going to take a hit or leap when people realize this, but I can tell you that right now AAPL’s trading at 1782.98 having split twice since 2007.
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The writer is a little loopy. What this article says is that 1 in 3 users will buy it simply because it is an Apple product. Man, that makes it a POWERFUL brand.
A better poll would be the Price/Value comparison. I’d buy Honda over Lada and pay 40% more because the VALUE is there. Would I pay 2x as much for an iPhone over my current BlackBerry Pearl? Absolutely.
Branding is more about reputation in this case, and Apple has the reputation of delivering well designed products, which means looks AND works well (hear that Motorola?).
Contrary to what PC fanboys and Apple haters would have you believe, Apple fans don’t just buy Apple products just because Steve says so. They do so because Apple consistently delivers a great product that is easy to use. Reality. Deal with it.
Branding is for cattle.
I’m not sure the question actually tells us anything. They ask, “how important would each of the following be on your decision…”. 81% say price. Does that mean 81% will decide it is too expensive to buy? Same goes for battery life – you can get phones with much better battery life, so does that mean 76% will look elsewhere? What does “performance” even mean, when it comes to a phone?
Meaningless survey. Move along quietly.
“The writer is a little loopy. What this article says is that 1 in 3 users will buy it simply because it is an Apple product. Man, that makes it a POWERFUL brand. “
you need to work on your math/logic skills.
32% is not “we will buy it cause it is teh apples!” that simply has some measure of importance.
look at it this way: buy your logic 8 in 10 will buy it only due to price, and 3 in 10 only due to it being made by apple.
that is 11 in 10 people!
oh. my. god. they are going to sell a LOT of phones.
MW: i refuse to stoop any “lower” and make the MW a joke about IQs.
what Moo said. And I’m looking forward to dump my Razr for the iPhone simply because I am expecting the iPhone to actually work better with a well thought out UI and software updates that add functionality/fix bugs over time.
The razr looks nice perhaps, but the fact that it is slow and has a crappy menu system makes me dislike using it, every time.
Can someone please explain to me how the percentage scores in the article work? What is “100%” in this case? Shouldn’t the total score add up to 100%?
I assume they gave each person a list and said tick those which apply. In other words, the percentage is the percentage of people who would count that item as one of the things they considered. So, they don’t have to add up to anything.
Yes, I too am looking to DUMP my RAZR and get an iPhone. When I got my RAZR I had been looking forward to it for a couple years. Talk about deflated hopes. While it technically has many of the features (certainly not all) that the iPhone will have, most go unused because of either the terrible menu system or Verizon’s locking out of the features.
I look forward to a phone that I can finally sync with my mac, as effortlessly as my iPod or .Mac account.. Being able to get my cheesy pictures off the little phone camera shouldn’t cost me 25 cents to do it.. Actually, the touch screen, WiFi and built in iPod are just extra cream that will make it more enjoyable.
“There is truth, there are lies, and there are survey results.”
-Mark Twain
“Branding is for cattle.”
And dungeon parties involving lots of tequila and total strangers.
(BYOBG: Bring Your Own Ball Gag.)
Doomsayer, here…
I wonder what happens after the first million Mac/Apple/Jobs disciples (of which I am one) buy the iPhone? What happens when someone FINALLY asks, “How is this a video player with only 8GB of storage”? Or when someone else asks, “How come my 2 year old buggy MPx220 I got for $75 on eBay has a slot for a an SD card and this $600 iPhone doesn’t”?
I’m betting that a zillion people go to ATT to look at the thing, but only a small percentage buy it. Yes, the first week is going to be crazy, but after that, I think the average consumer is just not savvy enough to value features enough to pay the toll. (It’s the Mac Cube all over again….it’ll win every design award there is, but iPhone 1.0 just isn’t the homerun everyone thinks it is.)
After the first buy it no matter what buyers stand in line on the 29th and get their iPhones, the next tier are going to need to be convinced. Some will look at the interface and fall in love, but a lot are going to look at the price (81% it seems) and think about the real difference between WANTING the iPhone and actually BUYING one. All this irrational hype in defense of the iPhone is based on WANTING it, and it is being written by techo types who can see the value. I just don’t see enough general consumers making the jump to buying it. Remember that 93% of consumers are so oblivious to quality in technology features that they run WIndows and think that buying a new computer to run a system update is normal.
And I hope I’m wrong, because if the iPhone does actually make a dent in the market, this means all the rest of the makers actually improve their offerings.
Next Friday is going to be blast!
(And as an aside, if Apple wants enterprise penetration, all they need to do is partner with RIM to put a BlackBerry push client on the iPhone.)
Thanks Reality Check – it makes sense now. And thanks to Brian, now I know I’m not the only one!
one word: fucking duh.
That was excellent Shogun!
ROTFLMAO
I have a real concern about the iPhone that I haven’t seen addressed yet: I’m convinced that the iPhone will be a fabulous and revolutionary device and well worth its high price tag. The problem is that in the US it is tied to the miserable AT&T network for the next 5 years. What really scares me, for Apple’s sake, is that the iPhone delivers a customer experience that is less than it could be, not because of any issues with the device, but because it is on a network that sucks. But the customer won’t know to blame AT&T and so will point his finger at Apple. I really hope that this doesn’t happen, but I’ve never met an AT&T customer who is happy with the quality (mainly penetration, or the lack thereof) of their service, and I don’t want Apple or the iPhone to take a hit for something that isn’t their fault.
Nokia! Nokia! Nokia! Nokia! Nokia! Nokia! Nokia! Nokia!
Just Nokia forever! Doesn’t matter ho cute iphone is, I would be hopelessly devoted to uuuuuuu! My Nokia 3250!
Some people are scrapping the bottom of the barrel for a comment. Why not roll up a new one?
I call bullshit!
You sync your iPhone to your computer or .Mac daily. A movie ripped to fit on an iPhone is about 0.8 GB. That means you can store 3 to 7 movies on it, depending on the model.
Just how many movies are you planning to watch per day anyway?
Reality Check: “Same goes for battery life – you can get phones with much better battery life”
Bogus. Name one.
Has to be a smart phone.
A brand without substance has no value — it is only as good (or as bad) as its products, and even the finest brand can go downhill if it does not maintain quality.
The many ‘badge engineering’ failures in the auto industry are a good example of this.
Luckily with Apple, it tries hard and cares hugely about both its products and how people (us!) will use them.