Identify the elements of Apples brand identity.Was the launch of the iPhone a line extension, a brand extension or a brand stretch? Explain your answer and then discuss the advantages of this strategy.What evidence is there that Apple enjoys a high level of brand loyalty? What advantages does this bring the company?What meanings do you associate with the Apple brand? What has Apple done to help create these connections? What other experiences have influenced your image of the brand?Should electronics manufacturers take responsibility for the impact of their products on the environment? What could they do to make their businesses more environmentally friendly? Why would anyone queue for over 24 hours to buy an (arguably) over-priced phone? Especially when they could buy it from a shop around the corner for the same price and without queuing at all? Questions like these were puzzling passers-by on the day that the Apple iPhone went on sale in London for the first time. The queues outside Apples flagship store in Regent Street started two days before the iPhones much publicised arrival. It was November. It was cold and wet. Even the people queuing seemed bemused as to why they were doing it. Im a commercial director. This is ridiculous behaviour for someone like me, said one member of the queue, while a civil servant near the front offered at least a partial explanation for why he wanted to be one of the first to own the iPhone: Several of my colleagues have tried to arrange meetings with me on Monday just to have a look at it. The Apple iPhone combines a phone with a fully featured web browser, an advanced camera and a music player. Even at the time of its launch, it was by no means the only device on the market to do all of these things. There were a number of cheaper rivals but none of them inspired the adulation given to Apples new product. Fans of the iPhone raved over the deceptive simplicity of the design and were especially enthusiastic about the minimalist touchscreen. The iPhone is beyond such restraints as a conventional keypad. Lucky iPhone owners just brush their fingertips over the sleek, full-colour display. Time Magazine called it the invention of the year. Over half a million iPhones were sold over the weekend of its launch in the USA. This extraordinary level of sales made the companys first-year sales target of 10 million devices look easily achievable. With that sales volume, Apple would achieve a 1% global mobile market share which, while impressive for a new entrant in such a short space of time, would still be a long way short of market domination in volume terms at least. Apple has a reputation for leading-edge technology and attention to detail, particularly style detail. Very few other brands generate such interest and inspire the number of brand ambassadors that Apple does. Apple customers believe that the company really cares about the way they use the technology and about the way people look while using the technology. As a web designer in the iPhone queue on that wet November morning in London said: The point is the attention to detail. Im actually going to enjoy using my phone, and Apple are the only company that I know in most of consumer electronics who care about this stuff. The Apple Mac pioneered an icon-based operating system (the source of a long-running dispute with Microsoft over the Windows design) which was the starting point for Apple devotion. Mac users would not dream of trading in their computers for mere PCs and, years after the Mac revolution, Apples entry into the MP3 market inspired a similar response. The iPod dominates that market, not least in terms of brand awareness and desired purchase. Apple products are recognised as style icons by a wide demographic: their appeal crosses divides of age, income, gender and taste although approximately 93% of the queue for the new phone were male. The phones launch price was a hefty 269 (399) but there was speculation that the price might come down. In the USA, Apple cut the original price of the iPhone by $200 (100, 135) and then had to offer refunds to early customers who complained vociferously. Price was not the only off-putting feature of the iPhone. In the UK, broadband Internet access was available through Edge but, at the time of the launch, Edge only covered 30% of Britain, so in most places iPhoners would not be able to use that feature. Additionally, in an attempt to maximise revenues, Apple had negotiated exclusive contracts with specific network providers. All iPhones bought in the UK were tied into the O2 network for 18 months. These network deals had already broken down in France and Germany, where local anti-competition laws had forced Apple to unbundle the iPhones and offer them with a free choice of network. This freedom of choice came at an even higher price, of course. In Germany, the unbundled iPhones were on sale at 999 (about 720), while it cost 399 (the same as in the UK) to buy an iPhone with a contract with Apples German partner, T-Mobile. Among all the Apple-inspired hype came a burst of bad publicity too. Green lobbyists took advantage of the interest in the iPhones launch to make their own attack on the mobile phone market. Greenpeace claimed that mobile phones were significant polluters and that mobile companies needed to do far more to minimise their impact on the environment. Zeina Alhajj, Campaign Coordinator for Greenpeace, said: Over the life cycle of a phone there is massive pollution. The phone companies are making big changes transparency and reporting is far ahead of what it was four years ago, for example but it is still far away from being a really green industry. A recent Greenpeace report claimed to have found evidence of widespread, hazardous chemical contamination of rivers and underground wells in countries where electronics goods are manufactured. Greenpeace also complains that consumers are wasteful, replacing phones more often than is necessary and so artificially inflating the demand for new phones. Western consumers, in particular, frequently replace working phones with the latest models, keeping phones on average for only 18 months when they are designed to last for 10 years. Only a small proportion of these thousands of discarded phones are recycled. Nokia, the worlds biggest mobile handset manufacturer, believes that about 48% of old handsets are abandoned or forgotten by their owners many of them are just lying at the bottom of drawers.