Final Customer Buying from the Product Producer

Acquire Steps: Acquire steps include all activities the customer completes preceding the use or the consumption of the product. These steps include the customer's efforts needed for evaluation and acquisition of the product.

3. Intellectual: Segment customers on the basis of their current knowledge and understanding of the company and its products.

A. Knowledge of company and company product

1. Familiarity with company and brand, crossing all products

Customer knows both company and brand – Segment knows company and brand primarily for:
Reliability and Convenience

No. SIC Year Note
1 0 2003 Corporations that are global have global visibility, aspirations, and reach. There is prestige attached to a brand that has made it globally. People everywhere are likely to recognize and respect the brand. There is an implication that if it is successful on a global stage, it must also deliver innovation and quality products and services. A challenge is to reap the benefit of the global image without appearing distant and bureaucratic.
2 0 2004 Innovators may find it more prudent to defer decisions until they have more information about the innovation's fate and other players' experiences with it. Take Microsoft. It has rarely taken the lead in introducing new applications. It has deferred commitments and reserved the option to co-opt early movers with decisive bets. For instance, the Windows operating system followed innovation in Apple's Macintosh interface; Internet Explorer mirrored Netscape's Navigator; ActiveX followed Sun's Java; Windows CE came after the success of Palm OS; the MSN portal followed Internet pioneers Yahoo and AOL; Windows Media Player followed Real Networks' RealPlayer; and the Xbox game console followed Sony's PlayStation.
3 3571 2000 IBM's Global Business Partners Group, which works with some 45,000 IBM business partners, generated about a third of revenue in 1999 by selling IBM products and services. The jump is from 1996, when partners were only 10% of IBM sales. The partners program has taken over part of a job once done by the in-house IBM sales force.
4 4813 2002 AT&T Wireless plans to market its data services to companies first so employees on the go can get e-mail and other critical information. As services such as short messaging and instant messaging get simpler and cheaper, it anticipates that it can take off with consumers too.
5 4899 2004 Cable Companies are jumping in to compete with phone companies over VOIP technology (which allows users to place calls over the Internet), and phone companies are using VOIP to compete with one another. Every major phone carrier is jumping in, with retail or wholesale projects under way.
6 5812 2003 McDonald's shifted its advertising catch phrase from "You deserve a break today" to "I'm lovin' it"
7 7372 1985 IBM introduced a $40,000 database program, DB2, to compete with the key products of many independents. Although analysts say the program does not perform as fast as others, many customers waiting to test it.

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