Please help answer the following questions on Volvo using the case study below.

1) Briefly discuss how Apple influences need recognition.

2) Discuss two factors that influence consumer behavior of Apple customers (it can be

from the same category or different categories).

3) What type of buying behavior is most likely to be used by Apple customers? Justify

your choice.

of leadership and the use of new technologies to develop products which are innovative. The employees of the company are provided with an environment which is suitable for developing innovative products and this has been a major competitive strategy which has led to the development of better manufacturing and marketing processes. This was especially true for Apple a couple of decades ago as well as today. Because with the advent of iPod rst generation in 2001 on the market, it revolutionizes the electronics industry and had a major impact on competitors. Ever since, Apple has successilly launched several other line extensions of the older version with small incremental improvements. For example, in the year 2003 Apple launched iPod 3rd Generation and in the subsequent year 2004 it launched two more extensions of the products namely iPod Mini and iPod click Wheel. Again, in the year 2005 Apple came up with some improved products in the form of iPod Shufe, Nano and Video iPod. And nally, in the year 2007 iPhone was launched under the same brand umbrella term. The success recipe came to Apple in the form of iPod, and even Apple personal computers sales started going up because of this hit product. Apple has been very clever in its ploy of planned obsolescence, which is a deliberate ploy such as fashion and fads, as it is launching iPod after iPod and that too with new improvements. The new improved product has the cool feeling assorted around it. Therefore, it is compelling customers to engage in repeat purchase, which serves the long-term purpose of the company, thanks to planned obsolescence. P Sources: httpswmv.ukessays.comfessaysfmarketingfa-case-smdy-of-apples-success-story-marketingessay.php; httpstffivypanda. comfessaysfmarketing-ease-smdy-of-apple-inc-reportz' Volvo Trucks: Integrated Marketing Communications of Epic Proportions When you think of Volvo, you probably think of the boxy and sedate, practical and safe automobiles made in Swedenthe ones professors and young, married couples with children use to cart their groceries home. This story is about another Volvothe Volvo Group, maker of trucks. And not just SUVs or pickups, mind you. We're talking about full-sized, heavy-duty semi-tucks and trailers, mining and construction vehicles, and buses. Once one and the same with Volvo cars. the Volvo Group is now a separate company and one of the largest producers of commercial trucks in the world under various brands including Renault Trucks, Mack Trucks, UD Trucks, and its largest, Volvo Trucks. A few years ago, Volvo Trucks faced a big challenge. It was preparing for its rst major product launch in 20 yearsve new truck models in one year. With that launch, Volvo Trucks needed an integrated communication strategy that would achieve a lofty goalto get people worldwide to talk about its commercial trucks. Volvo Trucks wasn't just interested in creating buzz among its normal target set of corporate truck buyers. It wanted to appeal to regular folks in a way that would heighten their awareness of the brand, elevate the brand's cool factor, and get people talking, sharing, and supporting the brand from Singapore to Swaziland. How it accomplished thisand how Volvo Trucks keeps the brand in the public eye todayis an advertising coup of epic proportions. A Consumer Approach Typically, when a Bto-B company wants to promote a new product, it goes through an agency that specializes in its industry. That's what Volvo Trucks did previously, working with various agencies through different types of traditional media including print advertising, PR, and direct mail. But as it prepared to unleash its all-new line of heavy-duty trucks, the Swedish trucking firm realized that the media landscape had mdamentally changed since its last major launch. And the new media world called for a different approach to broadcasting the brand's message something unique that would outsmart competitors. Rather than go through a B-to-B agency with experience in commercial trucks, Volvo Trucks enlisted Forsman & Bodenforsone of Sweden's leading creative agencies with a history of groundbreaking consumer campaigns for the likes of IKEA, UNICEF, and Volvo Cars. As Forsman & Bodenfors developed the campaign, its research revealed two important insights about commercial trucks. First, long-haul truckers love their bucks, forming an emotional connection with them that resembles the relationship between regular drivers and their daily rides. Second, a large volume of inuencers have an impact on truck-buying decisionsa set that includes friends, family members, colleagues, bosses, and even the clients and businesses whose products the trucks carry. Armed with these insights, the team set out to create an integrated campaign that would amaze experienced truckers by showcasing the new trucks' features while simultaneously captivating the general public with breartakin g demonstrations. Traditional television advertising was out of reach budget wise. It was also not a good t for the kinds of messages the campaign needed to communicate or the types of buzz the agency hoped to create. So Forsman & Bodenfors turned to social media. The result was a campaign dubbed \"Live Tests,\" a illy integrated promotional effort rooted in a series of documentary-style hns designed to have impact on a Hollywood scale. Appealing to the Masses with \"Live Tests\" The rst lm to go up on Volvo Trucks' YouTube channel was \"The Ballerina,\" a three-minute \"making of'-style video in which world record-holding highliner Faith Dickey walked a wire between two speeding Volvo trucks, completing the run just in time to duck as the trucks entered two opposing sides of a tunnel, violently snapping the tight wire. The video was designed to demonstrate the tremendous steering precision of the new Volvo trucks. Although the \"Live Tests\" campaign eventually panned out into a multi-feature, long-running campaign, it was only aer \"The Ballerina\" was posted that the campaign's strategy began to take shape. \"When you create for YouTube, you can't plan too much in advance because you really don't know how.. . popular an idea or piece of lm will be,\" recounts Bjorn Engstrm, senior partner with the ad agency. After that rst successful effort, Volvo Trucks and the agency created a set of ve more hns. In \"The Technician,\" a Volvo semi roars over the head of an engineer buried up to his neck in sand, demonstrating the Ducks 12-inch ground clearance. \"The Hook\" provides a dramatic testimonial of the strength of Volvo truck tow hooks, given by Volvo Trucks president Claes Nilsson as he stands perched atop a Volvo truck with trailer suspended high above a harbor. \"Hamster" demonslrates \"ease of steeling,\" with a tiny hamster named Charlie steering a huge mining dump truck by running on an exercise wheel attached to the truck's steering wheel. And in an interactive 360-degree experience illustrating maneuverability, \"The Chase\" provides the point of view of a Volvo truck as it runs from bulls through the tight streets of a Spanish town. The timed release of each of these videos was accompanied by various supporting promotional efforts designed to extend the campaign's message and drive traztc to YouTube. Volvo Truck sponsored print ads in the trucking press as well as interviews with Volvo engineers, released in both print and video. The videos had another purposeto increase the social media fan base for Volvo Trucks, building toward the campaign's grand nale. In little more than a year and on the eve of the debut of the campaign's dramatic video climax, the number of Volvo Trucks YouTube subscribers had increased 2,300 percent to 85,000 while the Volvo Trucks Facebook page experienced a 1,700 percent increase in fans to 290,000. But it was the nal instalhnent in the rst round of the \"Live Tests\" campaign that hit the ball out of the park. In \"Epic Split,\" martial arts superstar Jean-Claude Van Damme stood with one foot on the mirrors of two side-by-side shiny new gold Volvo trucks as they moved progressively farther apart in reverse, stabilizing their distance at the point where the Muscles from Brussels is poised in lll and perfect splits. The dramatic video highlighted Volvo Dynamic Steeringan electronically controlled mechanism that adjusts 2,000 times per second for unsurpassed precision. Within a month, the video had drawn 60 million YouTube hits, going on to become the most viral non-Super Bowl automotive ad of all time. Also by the end of the month, Volvo Trucks delivered 31 percent more trucks to dealers than it had for the same month the previous year. The Synergy of IMC Although each piece of the \"Live Tests\" campaign was laudable in itself, the sum of the parts produced a result more impressive than any of the stunts performed in the campaign videos. According to Forsman & Bodenfors, the campaign produced more than 100 million video views, 8 million social media shares, and more than 20,000 editorial features. It also produced thousands of video spoofs good for another 50 million views, including \"Greetings from Chuck,\" a video for the holidays featuring a CGI Chuck Norris performing splits on the wings of two Lockheed C-Ss while a lit-up, tree-shaped pyramid of military paratroopers stood on his head. In all, the media impact of the campaign was valued at more than $170 million. The campaign received so many awards- including the Creative Effectiveness Grand Prix at Cannesthat Advertising Age dubbed Volvo Trucks the \"Most Awarded Advertiser of the Year.\" The campaign also produced measurable behaviors among target customers. In a survey of 2,200 commercial truck owners, half of those who saw the videos indicated they were more likely to choose Volvo for their next purchase, while a third of respondents had either contacted a dealer or visited a Volvo Trucks website. \"If we talk to our salespeople in our 140 markets all over the world,\" said Anders Vilhelmsson, PR director for Volvo Trucks, \"they tell us very oen one of the rst things prospective customers bring up in conversation is the viral lm.\" With all this success achieved on a shoestring budget, it's no surprise that Volvo Trucks extended the \"Live Tests\" campaign. Following the same model set by the rst six videos, the team produced some unlikely pieces, including a race between a Volvo tractor and a supercar as well as a hidden-camera expose showing the reaction of a valet as a Volvo truck pulls up in front of a black-tie casino. But the most recent video became one of the most successful entries of the campaign to date. \"Look Who's Driving\" puts a darling British four-year-old behind the remote controls of the Volvo FMXa dump truck that the ad proclaims is \"the toughest truck we ever built.\" Rather than just a clever series of stunts for the sake of stunts, \"Live Tests\" pulled off a monumental task. By selecting features with high relevance to both its new models and the target audience, Volvo communicated those features through stories that captivated viewers everywhere. The campaign achieved the goal of successfully launching ve new trucks, with phase two ultimately producing a social media fan base double the size of the one Volvo Trucks had achieved following the rst phase of the campaign. The campaign has also helped Volvo Trucks to achieve record sales and market share worldwide. Even more amazing, Volvo Trucks did all that on a shoestring budget. In the world of integrated marketing communications, \"Live Tests\" is truly an epic