We have all seen the Apple ads featuring Justin Long as a Mac and John Hodgmen as a PC, but have we really thought about their impact on the computer market? Through the ads, Apple is conveying that Macs are better than PCs for many different reasons including ease of use, design, reliability, and security. It is also necessary to look at the characters in the ads; they are Mac and PC users personified. Mac is young and trendy while PC is stodgy and nerdy. Both the arguments in the commercials and the characteristics of Mac and PC work together to influence a consumer’s perception of the two biggest players in the computer market.
Apple has spent millions attempting to make consumers think their products are superior to PCs. As a result of Apple’s product differentiation, they have made consumers much less price sensitive when buying Macs. According to Betanews.com, the average selling price for a PC was $475 compared to $1361 for a Mac over Q4 2009. There are two interesting things to take from those figures, the average Mac is sold at a premium of nearly $900 and Apple’s cheapest computer at $600 is still 26% more than the average PC. When looking at the overall computer market, Microsoft has a 90% market share compared to Apple’s, which is nearly 6%. However, take the premium computer market ($1000+) and Apple commands a 90% market share to Microsoft’s 9%.
Even though both Macs and PCs perform the same basic tasks, one has positioned itself as a product that exudes style, sophistication, status, and intelligence. As a result, Apple has taken advantage of consumer’s perceptions and is able to charge almost 3 times as much for a product that is essentially the same.
This blog post was written by Freddie Joyner, Benjamin J. Lee and Tracey Liang
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