Angela Ahrendts hints at upcoming back to school promotion in internal video

Posted:
in General Discussion edited July 2015
Apple's annual Back to School promotion appears to be a no-show for 2015, but a report on Saturday claims SVP of Retail Angela Ahrendts this week hinted to employees that a comparable offering could be coming soon.


Apple's 2014 Back to School promotion.


In her weekly global video address to Apple Store employees, Ahrendts suggested that a new educational promotion, potentially a replacement to Apple's Back to School sale, is in the works and could be announced soon, reports Consomac.

"I'm sure many of you are thinking also 'but is there anything else for Back to School?' Well, I need you to wait until next week's video and I'll share a little bit more insight with you then," Ahrendts reportedly said.

The statement appears signal an end to the annual Back to School sale and the start of a new program targeting the education market, an area in which iPad and Mac excels. While Ahrendts didn't confirm Apple's plans, the publication described her speech as upbeat, speculating the company has something in store for shoppers.

Apple traditionally kicks off the back-to-school shopping season with a buying incentives in the first days of July, but has not yet done so for 2015. Last year, on top of educational discounts, the company gave students and faculty Apple Store and iTunes gift cards worth $100 for every Mac and $50 for iPhone and iPad.

The education market is an important one for Apple and the company is said to be working on modifications to its existing "iPad in Education" program in a bid to spur wider adoption. Recently, however, iPad and Mac are seeing stiff competition in K-12 from Google's low-priced Chromebook platform and, to a lesser extent, Microsoft's Surface tablet lineup.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 23
    "Buy a Mac, get Beats by Dre for free" would probably be popular. I'm serious.
  • Reply 2 of 23
    mike1mike1 Posts: 3,275member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by TheWhiteFalcon View Post



    "Buy a Mac, get Beats by Dre for free" would probably be popular. I'm serious.



    Yeah. Buy a cool new computer and get a pair of really crappy headphones free.

  • Reply 3 of 23
    ddawson100ddawson100 Posts: 513member
    How about a one year subscription to Apple Music. Nominal benefit of $120 but that would be much less actual cost to Apple. Now that I think about it, it would be cool if you could give a gift of a year membership to someone.
  • Reply 4 of 23
    mike1 wrote: »

    Yeah. Buy a cool new computer and get a pair of really crappy headphones free.

    People buy the things like crazy though. Especially college age kids who don't appreciate the finer side to audio.
  • Reply 5 of 23
    roakeroake Posts: 809member

    Seems like getting headphones or music subscription would be unlikely to benefit someone academically.  I wonder if Apple will target in this manner, or will just go with whatever they think may be popular regardless of the actual impact to education.

  • Reply 6 of 23
    roake wrote: »
    Seems like getting headphones or music subscription would be unlikely to benefit someone academically.  I wonder if Apple will target in this manner, or will just go with whatever they think may be popular regardless of the actual impact to education.

    Free year of Office 365? :lol:
  • Reply 7 of 23
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by mike1 View Post

     



    Yeah. Buy a cool new computer and get a pair of really crappy headphones free.




    You sound like those iHaters who say only stupid people buy Apple products. Please get a clue.

  • Reply 8 of 23
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Apple is having a problem with Chromebooks in education. Simply because the cost so much less, educators are turning to Chromebooks. But Surface Pro tablets aren't making a dent anywhere. They cost significantly more than iPads. Last quarter, Microsoft sold about 625,000 to 675,000 of them.There isn't evidence that cheaper Windows tablets are doing well there either.
  • Reply 9 of 23
    robmrobm Posts: 1,068member
    Free year of Office 365? :lol:

    ohh - that's low. Well below the belt. ;)
  • Reply 10 of 23
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by RobM View Post





    ohh - that's low. Well below the belt. image



    A lot of colleges still require Office submissions, so it's not entirely unfounded. ;)

  • Reply 11 of 23
    robmrobm Posts: 1,068member
    melgross wrote: »
    Apple is having a problem with Chromebooks in education. Simply because the cost so much less, educators are turning to Chromebooks. But Surface Pro tablets aren't making a dent anywhere. They cost significantly more than iPads. Last quarter, Microsoft sold about 625,000 to 675,000 of them.There isn't evidence that cheaper Windows tablets are doing well there either.

    They sure are !
    Goog has made a big inroad in the education market - backed by Goog classroom https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Classroom

    Classrooms not bad - could be way better but it has provided Goog with a viable way to gain traction.
    The M$ techs servicing the schools networks push them here in NZ along with Classroom.
    Price $330 - $730 NZD compared to $749 for an iPad Air 2
  • Reply 12 of 23
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Roake View Post

     

    Seems like getting headphones or music subscription would be unlikely to benefit someone academically.  I wonder if Apple will target in this manner, or will just go with whatever they think may be popular regardless of the actual impact to education.


    Yeah, sure..... the $100 iTunes Gift Cards Apple gave out in the past were surely all spent on academic stuff....

  • Reply 13 of 23
    Let's talk about how this dooms Apple.
  • Reply 14 of 23
    hmmhmm Posts: 3,405member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by mike1 View Post

     



    Yeah. Buy a cool new computer and get a pair of really crappy headphones free.


     

    They're popular. I think they're a terrible value, but they're still popular.

  • Reply 15 of 23
    gustavgustav Posts: 827member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by lkrupp View Post

     



    You sound like those iHaters who say only stupid people buy Apple products. Please get a clue.


     

    He may sound like an iHater, but he's right. There are much better headphones to be had for what Beats cost.

  • Reply 16 of 23
    slurpyslurpy Posts: 5,382member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mike1 View Post

     



    Yeah. Buy a cool new computer and get a pair of really crappy headphones free.


     

    And 75% of people that I see with headphones use the Apple earpods, which are 100X crappier- but they certainly don't mind. Beats sound fantastic for 95% of people I'm sure. They also happen to look pretty good, and have good branding, unlike almost everything else out there.  The extreme audio snobs can grab something else. Pretty much 99% of people I see out and about are using either the white earpods or Beats. So, Apple basically owns the mainstream headphone market right now.

     

    But you're right, they should have acquired a "better sounding" brand that no one will wear, instead of an ultra-popular one that people love. 

  • Reply 17 of 23
    charlitunacharlituna Posts: 7,217member
    It's probably not a promo with a gift card etc but rather a redo to the discounts. They are rather lame as shit. I'm sure Apple can afford to give better than $50 off a freaking Air and $100 of a Pro or an iMac. I mean they give employees a friends and family discount of 15% off. So how about that but then actually do something about the scammers. Can't be that hard to say that to get it you have to register for a one time use code using a college email. Maybe they could even have high schools that require kids to buy their own iPad or computer sign up to give the same to those kids. Many private and charter schools in my area give the kids at school emails so the process would work.
  • Reply 18 of 23
    gustav wrote: »
    He may sound like an iHater, but he's right. There are much better headphones to be had for what Beats cost.

    For less, even. I'm disappointed Apple hasn't done more to improve them, they've just exploited them as a cash cow.
  • Reply 19 of 23
    hmmhmm Posts: 3,405member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Slurpy View Post

     

    But you're right, they should have acquired a "better sounding" brand that no one will wear, instead of an ultra-popular one that people love. 


    I don't think they would have purchased Beats for the headphones alone. If they were after high quality headphones, they could have purchased a brand with better engineering and restyled them into something more stylish.

  • Reply 20 of 23
    iobserveiobserve Posts: 96member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by TheWhiteFalcon View Post

     



    A lot of colleges still require Office submissions, so it's not entirely unfounded. ;)




    Yes, it is entirely unfounded ;-)

    iWork can save any document in .doc or other windows format. And it's free.

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