[Ti] "Apple parting ways with some resellers"

[Michael Bigley]

>  >"Resellers that have not currently renewed made up less than 1.5 
>percent of Apple's
>>worldwide revenue in 2002."
>
>Is 'low market share' an easy answer?
>--

Yes, and a flawed one. Partly for the same reasons that Apple's 
marketshare numbers are meaningless, but what is further being missed 
by the loss of these agents is the negative PR it will create as well 
as a loss of leveraged advertising.   Besides, 1.5% is about $90 
million in REAL CASH isn't it? Aren't Apple's sales around $6 billion?

But back to the PR and leveraged advertising.  Take Cincinnati (since 
that is where this thread was born); The Apple Store is in Kenwood 
Mall, an upscale mall on the east side of Cincinnati; for reasons 
that only Cincinnatians will fully understand, about a third of the 
population never has, nor ever will they step foot inside of Kenwood 
Mall (actually part of that is due to simple geographic 
inconvenience). I am sure that many, many people do not even know the 
Apple Store exists, especially potential switcher. However with other 
vendors selling Mac products, when a switch ad runs on tv, someone 
may say, hey I'm gonna check those Macs out the next time I'm at 
Microcenter.  But when they go, there is no Mac department anymore... 
some kid making 6 bucks an hours tells them Mac is on the way out so 
Microcenter dropped them.

Now you have a negative PR situation that will only continue to grow 
because there is only one Apple Store and this fellow from Delhi 
doesn't even know it exists. He's telling all his friends that 
Apple's going out of business and he's sure glad he bought a Dell, 
Dude.

In addition, the opportunity cost of those very expensive Switch ads, 
or whatever their next campaign is, is diminished because a much 
larger segment of the population will not have an inkling of how to 
take action.  Dell Dude sees the commercial during a Reds game and 
says, "gee, I thought they're out of business..."

Remember, it is not reality that creates action, it is our PERCEPTION 
of reality that creates action....
-- 
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Mike Bigley                Maineville, Ohio
       http://www.norbertrunning.com
Please support an American Indian Elder &
Medicine Man by visiting the above link.
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