Every brand should go through different stages from downs to ups in their operating cycles. It might be necessary to ask for the reason why brands undergo times of difficulties and other times of success. In fact, the performance of each brand mainly depends on its consumers. In particular, consumer attitudes towards each new activity of the brand play an extremely important role in setting and changing the future strategies.

Consumer attitudes is a composite of three elements: cognitive information, affective information, and information concerning a consumer’s past behavior and future intentions (Solomon 2018). In other words, attitude consists of thoughts or beliefs, feelings, and behaviors or intentions towards a particular thing, which in this case is usually a good or service. For example, you may have a very positive view of a particular sports car (for example, you believe it performs better than most), it makes you feel good, and you intend to buy it.

Consumers are individuals with likes and dislikes (Husemann 2019). When the preponderance of people in a particular group feel one way or another about a product, service, entity, person, place or thing, it is said to be a generalized consumer attitude that could affect the marketing of that person, product or entity in positive or negative ways.

Samsung in relation to the brand attitude has produced a good attitude for consumers because it managed to build his personality expression in addition to the provision of tangible benefits of the usefulness of a smartphone
(Brown 2017). One of them is to build social effects of visibility for its products Samsung Galaxy S7 categories renewable technologies with cutting-edge features that are causing consumers deemed up-to-date and high-tech in front of the public and the attitude here as an expression of value.

Samsung has also been very creative in introducing the series of Samsung Galaxy A – with A for Attitudes, with a catchy slogan “Same DNA Different Attitudes”. This product line has attracted a vast number of consumers especially the young generations as the features well describe their “attitudes towards technology”.

References

Brown, R 2017, “Survey: Consumer perception of Samsung recovering from Galaxy Note 7 fiasco”, Mobile Marketer 21 April 2017, available at
https://www.mobilemarketer.com/news/survey-consumer-perception-of-samsung-recovering-from-galaxy-note-7-fiasco/440937/ , viewed 10 May 2019

Husemann, KC & Eckhardt, GM 2019, ‘Consumer spirituality’, Journal of Marketing Management, vol. 35, no. 5/6, pp. 391–406, viewed 11 May 2019

Solomon, Michael, et al. Consumer Behaviour: Buying, Having Being, P.Ed Australia, 2018.

Samsung group has been growing quickly for the last ten years based on Korean exclusive historical and economic backgrounds. Especially, Samsung Electronics, which is the biggest subsidiaries in the Samsung Group. To become a successful company Samsung need to have workers that really enjoy working there and giving their best effort for the company. The manager of Samsung Electronics still need to give motivation their employees. Motivation is the set of forces that initiates, directs and makes people persist in their efforts to accomplish a goal (Solomon et el 2018).There are three theories in motivation. One of them is McClleland’s Learned Needs Theory. Three motivators divide the theory itself. The three motivators are affiliation, achievement and power. Samsung Electronics applies this theory to motivate their workers (Shao 2019).

Good relationships between the employees effect how they perform their job (Crawford 2014). In McClelland theory it’s called affiliation. Affiliation is about relationship between the employees. Those with a need for affiliation need pleasant relationship with other people and need to feel accepted by other people. Samsung Electronics has a perfectly good environment for all their employees. From the comment that Samsung Electronics gets most of them tell that all the co-workers are good and have an excellent culture . It means that all the employees really enjoy working there and they really motivated to going to work.

With a good relationship between the employees, Samsung Electronics has many achievements in the past 20 years in electronics industry. Based on McClelland theory, achievement is one of motivators for the employees. All the achievement that Samsung Electronics has accomplished makes the employees works better and harder.

Therefore, Samsung Electronics really applying McClelland Needs Theory about affiliation, achievement and power. Manager from Samsung Electronics really motivate the employees to work better and harder, so they can achieve their goals.

References

Crawford, R 2014, Samsung evolves benefits strategy, Employee Benefits, November 14 2014, available at
https://www.employeebenefits.co.uk/issues/november-2014/samsung-evolves-benefits-strategy/

Shao, W, Grace, D & Ross, M n.d., 2019, ‘Consumer motivation and luxury consumption: Testing moderating effects’, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, vol. 46, pp. 33–44, viewed 5 May 2019, 

Solomon, Michael, et al. Consumer Behaviour: Buying, Having Being, P.Ed Australia, 2018 .

Click to access D037.pdf

Since its beginning, Samsung has been widely known as a futuristic electronic brand, especially smartphones which are designed according to the needs of consumers. Samsung’s core competency is its ability to get the most out of the android operating system as well as the quality of their smartphones. From this point, it goes without saying that Samsung has done well in placing the “self-concept” as one of its main strategies to beat other rivals. Theoretically, self-concept summarizes the beliefs a person holds about his own attributes and how he evaluates the self on these qualities (Solomon 2018). In real life, how does Samsung apply this concept successfully ?

At IFA 2011, Samsung consumers define their needs as “A smarter life, a smarter world”. Also in this event, Boo-Keun Yoon, president of Samsung Electronics’ visual display business, stated how Samsung was doing very excellent in contributing to the smarter world: listening to the voices of their consumers.

Following President Yoon’s opening remarks, Michael Zoeller, Samsung’s European marketing director for television and audio visual products, explained the company’s entrance into a new era in its design history—One Design, which is an approach to blend design and technology into a product that signifies “oneness” and sense of unity.

As the No.1 TV manufacturer in Europe, Samsung’s unrivaled leadership was also noted. Receiving over 350 awards across nine major European countries in 2011 alone, Samsung Smart TVs occupy the No. 1 position in product reviews among 10 European consumer magazines—including the top eight spots from Netherland‘s consumer publication Consumentenbond.

In fact, Samsung also overtakes Apple in terms of self-concept and consumer personality (Lee 2019). It is not surprising how Samsung market shares have been rising constantly due to their contribution to the technological world. Samsung is also gaining more and more ‘fans’ for its Android system.

Android offers the best in terms of end-user experience mainly because of the extent that one can customize his phone or device. The secret to its ability to be customized lies in the fact that it is an open source software (Lee 2019). This means that anybody with programming skills can create applications for his or her device. This creates a limitless field for customization in terms of color, design, functionality and general appearance of your phone or tablet. This makes it almost impossible for you to miss what really works for you.

In addition to designs and other technical strategies, Samsung also pays attention to the “budget users” with different smartphone lines ranging from low to high price.
Samsung has made many series of phones for budget users unlike Apple who only makes phones for premium users. The cheapest Iphone on the Market currently is still over $300 while the cheapest Samsung is under $100. This indicates that Samsung can cater both the Budget and Premium markets.

Overall, Samsung plays a good role in taking care of any need from consumers, taking their own attributes into consideration to build up their brand personality.

References

Lee, YW 2019, ‘Enhancing shared value and sustainability practices of global firms: The case of samsung electronics’, Strategic Change, vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 139–145, viewed 6 May 2019

Solomon, Michael, et al. Consumer Behaviour: Buying, Having Being, P.Ed Australia, 2018.

Petrov, D 2018, ‘Samsung to release new foldable models each year, files fresh patents on eventual designs’, The Motley Fool Nov 19 2018, available at https://www.phonearena.com/news/Samsung-foldable-phone-model-design-patents_id111153 viewed 3 May 2019.

‘How Did Apple and Samsung Come to Rule the Smartphone Industry?’, Southern Phone 17 Oct 2018, available at
https://southernphone.com.au/Blog/2018/Oct/apple-and-samsung-smartphone-kings?page=1, viewed 1 May 2019

Not too far ago, Samsung wasn’t as popular as now. They struggled to keep up with the smartphone market, but now Samsung has progressed so much that they are the main competitor of the Apple Inc.

Furthermore, Samsung is the largest tech business by revenue and seventh most valuable brand today.

There are critics of Samsung who argue that its success is mostly due to copying and then tweaking the innovations of others. There is a good deal of truth in this, especially around the early Galaxy designs.

But Samsung is a global leader in screen technology, TVs, batteries, and chip design. So in terms of innovation it is doing a lot right. But we know very little about how.

The understanding about how each brand wins others and succeeds in being distinguishable requires consumer learning – a process by which individuals acquire the purchase and consumption knowledge and experience that they apply to future related behavior (Solomon et el 2018). The first and foremost stimulus that Samsung uses on a very frequent basis is the eye-catching design of every product line. This can be regarded as classical conditioning, which will eventually leads to a conditioned response (Solomon et el 2018). Samsung is the most favorable brand in regards of technological gadgets due mostly to its innovative and creative design both from inside to the outside
(Dell’Acqua 2015).

People usually get extremely excited whenever Samsung released a demo of its new smartphone model because Samsung never lets them down in terms of the ‘appearance’ (Deakin 2019).

Recently, there have been releases/announcements of the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, iPhone XR, Galaxy Note 9, Galaxy S10/S10+, Google Pixel 3, OnePlus 6T, Huawei Mate 20 Pro, LG V40 ThinQ, and many other phones. Each release of a phone is like a single Mentos being dropped into a 2-liter of Coke — a new explosion of debate that overwhelms the social network about who has the “best” phone. Android! No, iOS! Galaxy S10! No, iPhone XS! The debate goes on and on. Are Android phones or iPhones better? This is the question that makes Samsung find a way to make itself outstanding and becomes the most desirable brand.

Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron and Samsung Mobile present ‘Assemble’ Part 1 and 2 -The advertisement, starring Lionel Messi, Eddie Lacy, John Florence, Fabian Cancellara and 2 awesome fans, was the huge success of Samsung’s marketing department (Lee 2019).

At the moment, both parts of the video have more than 51 million views. The commercial focuses on the compatibility of the Gear VR and the Galaxy S6, showing the awesomeness of the new product that Samsung introduced (Lee 2019).

Besides the outward physical design, Samsung is also gaining more and more ‘fans’ for its Android system.

Android offers the best in terms of end-user experience mainly because of the extent that one can customize his phone or device. The secret to its ability to be customized lies in the fact that it is an open source software (Lee 2019). This means that anybody with programming skills can create applications for his or her device. This creates a limitless field for customization in terms of color, design, functionality and general appearance of your phone or tablet. This makes it almost impossible for you to miss what really works for you.

References

10 REASONS WHY AN ANDROID PHONE IS BETTER THAN AN IPHONE , Crambler, available at
https://crambler.com/10-reasons-android-phone-better-than-iphone/

Deadkin, D 2019, Impressive infographic details how the Samsung Galaxy S series has evolved, from S to S10+, The Notebook check , 18 February 2019, available at
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Impressive-infographic-details-how-the-Samsung-Galaxy-S-series-has-evolved-from-S-to-S10.410086.0.html

Dell’Acqua, S 2015, ‘eLearning Hubs and Edu-Business: How Private Companies Can Serve Common Good–The Case of Samsung School’, Universal Journal of Educational Research, vol. 3, no. 8, pp. 530–535, viewed 6 May 2019

Lee, YW 2019, ‘Enhancing shared value and sustainability practices of global firms: The case of samsung electronics’, Strategic Change, vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 139–145, viewed 6 May 2019

Samsung New Products 2018, Perfect Gift for Every Mom, Albawaba,
, 18 March 2018, available at https://www.albawaba.com/business/pr/samsung-mother%E2%80%99s-day-blurbs-2018-1104010

Solomon, Michael, et al. Consumer Behaviour: Buying, Having Being, P.Ed Australia, 2018

In the era when technological advances have been so ubiquitous in human’s life, smartphones are an indispensable part in our everyday’s necessities. People use mobile phones all day with multiple purposes. As a consequence, different brands begin to enter the phone market with the top two leading ones being Samsung and Apple.

In the battle of technology, consumer perception is one key factor for any brand to gain success ( Haase 2018). Perception is the process by which such basic stimuli as light, color, and sound are selected, organized, and interpreted by our our sensory receptors (e.g., eyes, ears, nose, mouth, ringers) (Solomon 2018).

Recently in 2018, Samsung was considered to be winning the perception battle against Apple with its launch of new products such as Galaxy Note 9, Galaxy Watch and Galaxy Home.
From day one, Samsung had struck the right kind of chord with consumer needs when it launched the first Note device. It was a piece of gadgetry that appealed to a new and emerging audience. Before the Galaxy Note 9, Samsung was struggling with the ‘exploding disaster’ of the Galaxy Note 7 when it was reported from not only within Korea and but also around the world that the phone could easily catch fire and even exploded. Nevertheless, Samsung chose to move beyond this scandal and continued to regain its brand perception and the faith of consumers by new models within existing lines such as the Galaxy Note and the Galaxy S.

Lately, its introduction of the Galaxy S9, S9+ and even the latest model S10+ has been gathering attention from technological fans around the world.

Looking specifically at the release of the new phones, Samsung’s attention score (whether someone has heard something about the brand in the past two weeks) has grown by six points since the tail end of February, up from nine to 15 among the general public (Lee 2019).

The data shows that the public generally believes Samsung provides greater value for money than Apple with its value score (whether you think the brand represents good value for money) standing at 19 against Apple’s minus 15.

References

Haase, J, Wiedmann, K-P & Labenz, F 2018, ‘Effects of consumer sensory perception on brand performance’, Journal of Consumer Marketing, vol. 35, no. 6, pp. 565–576, viewed 12 April 2019

Lee, YW 2019, ‘Enhancing shared value and sustainability practices of global firms: The case of samsung electronics’, Strategic Change, vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 139–145, viewed 6 May 2019

Solomon, Michael, et al. Consumer Behaviour: Buying, Having Being, P.Ed Australia, 2018.

Decision making is one of the most important aspect in our life. We have to make decisions everyday about everything around us. Some are good decisions, others are not very smart ones. In fact, decision making is a process which include certain stages.

In the world of buying and selling, decision making is the term that a great number of consumers are concerned with as these are the ones who will directly take part in the action of purchasing products (Solomon 2018). Thus, consumer decision making has become a primary issue which marketers must take into account seriously so as to develop the most effective marketing strategy.

The buying decision behavior types are easily characterised by measuring the amount of effort the buyer puts into the decision making process. Decisions involving extended problem solving correspond most closely to the traditional decision-making perspective (Thomas 2018).

As a matter of fact there are 5 stages of consumer decision making ( Panwar 2019):

• Need Recognition
• Searching and gathering Information
• Evaluating the Alternatives
• Actual Purchase of the Product or the Service
• Post Purchase Evaluation

From a personal point of view, I have recently made several decisions in purchasing. The most dilemma I usually have to deal with is to buy what I need or what I want. IN general, marketing is believed to create needs and wishes that we do not necessarily have in the first place. For example, last week, I went to Cotton On to buy a jacket for the upcoming winter. My primary intention was just to buy the jacket. Nevertheless, I entered the store, wandered around all the aisles and chose several other things to try on. In the mean time, I could not choose any suitable jacket for myself and ended up buying three more dresses that I had had no intention of purchasing. Thus, instead of spending money on what I actually needed, I eventually bought something that I wanted but was not necessary.

In conclusion, the marketing decision process is simple yet complicated to understand thoroughly. As a result, marketers should do research on this subject and apply the most appropriate marketing plans to generate the needs and wants from buyers.

References:

Panwar, D, Anand, S, Ali, F & Singal, K 2019, ‘Consumer Decision Making Process Models and their Applications to Market Strategy’, International Management Review, vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 36–44, viewed 12 May 2019.

Solomon, Michael, et al. Consumer Behaviour: Buying, Having Being, P.Ed Australia, 2018.

Thomas, VL, Magnotta, SR, Chang, H & Steffes, E 2018, ‘Role-Playing in a Consumption Context: An Experiential Learning Activity Focused on the Consumer Decision-Making Process’, Marketing Education Review, vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 89–97, viewed 12 May 2019

In recent years, ethical issues have been of great concern in many international as well as small businesses. In fact, many organisations have started to published the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) annual report to outline the sustainability goals and achievements besides the financial figures. Converse is one of America’s most iconic footwear companies. Providing people around the world with sneakers for over 100 years, the brand is considered cool and classic – but do their ethics match their image?

Business ethics in the modern world

We have known about business ethics for a long time, but do businesses actually perceive them the way they should and consequently follow the rules? In the epoch of industrialisation, the issue of business ethics is one of the most controversial concerns that many corporations and companies seek to comply with. Business ethics are something both producers and consumers can talk about, but hardly can we do them properly.

The footwear industry: Iconic or ethical?

In an era when trainer and shoe design is changed on a frequent basis, with many patterns introduced to consumers, there is one brand that has remained merely the same: Converse, especially the Converse Chuck Taylor All Star. In fact, this product line of Converse has stayed virtually unchanged since it first entered the market place in 1917. After the takeover of Nike in 2003, Converse has since then surged again and become one of the most iconic sneaker brands in the world. Nevertheless, a great number of consumers raised their concern about the impact of the footwear industry on the environment as well as human being. As a consequence, Nike, in general, and Converse in specific has set some ambitious goal in order to enhance their business ethics.

Recently, the Corporate Social Responsibility policy of Converse has included some targets in relation to the environmental issues. The company is striving to reduce the production leftovers and waste for “most of their supply chain”. They have started to use the environmentally friendly materials for their manufacturing process in order to minimize their operational emissions by half in the near future of 5 years. In addition, one of the most surprising facts about the Chuck Taylor High Tops is that they can be recycled if consumers return them to Nike stores.

In spite of the fact that Converse is starting to turn itself into an eco-warrior, many people still criticizes that the brand has made no commitment to eliminate hazardous chemicals. In addition to this issue, they are facing dissatisfaction among workers in regard to the standard minimum wage. According to the 2017 Ethical Fashion Report, Converse fails to pay “a living wage” or better wages “across their supply chain”. In particular, developing country workers do not receive the standard living wages as many fashion brands try to cut down their costs by way of outsourcing.

By and large, Converse has been rated “it’s a start” in most aspects in regards of its ethical policy. While the brand has made a decent start in each category, it has a way to go before achieving a higher score. Nevertheless, consumers can be positive about the future of the footwear industry as they are on their way to achieve ethical targets.

References

Horton, M (2018), “Why is business ethics important?”, Investopedia, 30 March 2018, available from https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/040815/why-are-business-ethics-important.asp

JKaybay (2015), “Converse Chuck Taylor High Tops”, The Green Stars Project, 28 March 2015, available from https://greenstarsproject.org/2015/03/28/converse-chuck-taylor-high-tops/

Wolfe, I (2017), “How ethical is Converse?”, Good On You, 11 September 2017, available from https://goodonyou.eco/how-ethical-is-converse/ 

What is a selfie?

A selfie is a self-portrait type image, typically taken with a smartphone which may be held in the hand or supported by a selfie stick. Selfies are often shared on social networking services such as Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram.

The word — and the practice of snapping pictures of one’s self — seems like it’s everywhere: President Obama and Vice President Biden recently paused to take a selfe while they were riding in the back of a White House limousine (Walsh 2018); Ellen DeGeneres took a selfe in the midst of hosting the 2014 Oscars, capturing an impromptu snapshot of stars, including Julia Roberts, Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Lawrence, Brad Pitt, and Kevin Spacey (DeGeneres shared the photo on Twitter and it was retweeted 779,295 times within 30 minutes). It seems like this phenomenon has become so ubiquitous that selfie has been considered a culture of keeping ‘memories’ other than common photographs.

Everyone knows that a selfie is a picture you take of yourself. Whether it’s serious, silly, or smiling there is a wide range of different types (Pajkovic 2017). The selfie culture should be seen as a positive impact on our society. A selfie celebrates who you are and embraces all your features. Selfie culture promotes self-awareness. It encourages identity exploration and acceptance. Better yet, it exposes us to a diverse set of faces and bodies, instead of the standard image of beauty that gets shoved down our throats by pop culture and the media. Living in a world where people are borderline obsessed with themselves beats living in a world where people hate the way that they look because it doesn’t reflect what the Kardashians look like.
As far-fetched as it may seem, selfies help strengthen friendships (Pajkovic 2017). With goofy faces, they can catch us at our worse and most intimate Pajkovic 2017).

Nevertheless, my people have regarded ‘selfie’ as negative due to a number of undesirable events in our life. For example,
the pitfalls occur when kids become unduly focused on how they look and how others perceive them. Then I’d start to be concerned about the threat to self-esteem or body image. In addition, selfies are also the root of many problems including body-shaming, loss of self-esteem, etc. More seriously,
The world of social media, smart phones, and pictures are contributing to “virtual distance” —  
measure of what is lost when human beings gets translated through the machine. Teenagers nowadays tend to upload more selfies to show off themselves rather than going out at socializing with their peers.

However, the evidence indicates that the link between selfies and well-being is not straightforward. For instance, the results of psychological research exploring the relationship between selfies and self-esteem are mixed. Some studies have found links between selfie posting and lower self-esteem, however others have reported a relationship with higher self-esteem. Still other research has found no link at all.

Selfies aren’t necessarily some weird craze or a viral trend amongst teenagers. While they may sometimes just be a form of teenage vanity, I believe they are important in the digital age as a form of communication, self-expression and documentation.

References

Pajkovic, A 2017, “SELFIE” PHENOMENON: Photos have become a creation of the self rather than an extension of the self, The Mindful World, May 29 2017, available atttps://www.themindfulword.org/2017/selfie-phenomenon-creation-self/

Walsh, L 2018, This Selfie Of Barack Obama & Joe Biden To Welcome The VP Back To Instagram Is So Good, Elite daily September 9 2018, available at
https://www.elitedaily.com/p/this-selfie-of-barack-obama-joe-biden-to-welcome-the-vp-back-to-instagram-is-so-good-11848683

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selfie

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton