Executive Summary
The main purpose of this paper is to analyze how Apple Inc, has become one of the worlds’ biggest companies through the implementation of superior marketing strategies. It has further discussed about brand identity and brand positioning which may help a firm to establish a strong foothold in the market and how Apple Inc has used it to their benefit. The paper further discusses how the Integrated Marketing Communications has helped them attain superior success compared to their closest competitors; Samsung and Google Inc.
Introduction
Apple was founded on 1st April 1976 by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in Los Angeles, California; joined by Mike Markkula Jr a couple of months later. They developed the easy-to-use Apple II in 1978 and became the industry leader by 1980. Created in 1984, the Macintosh was yet another breakthrough for Apple. Following this, Steve Jobs was given an operational role in 1985 by the board, after which he left the company and founded a new company called NeXT. Over the years, Apple Inc has evolved into one of the most successful multinational corporations in the world. Until now, it is best known for its line of hardware products; such as, their line of computers called Mac, music player line of iPods, smart phone line of iPhone and the iPad tablet PC line. In terms of the amount of revenue generated by Apple Inc, it is second after another electronic giant called Samsung.
Apart from the success of Apple II; the iPod was one of the biggest successes for Apple Inc. Soon after the enviable sales and profit levels of iPod, they also came up with iPod Nano, which was a smaller and cheaper version music player. This meant that they could tap onto those customers who could not afford the more expensive version of the iPod. Soon after the success of their music player line; Apple Inc came up with their smart phone line called iPhone is also a tremendous success and it continues to this day with the launching of iPhone 5. To accompany their products they also launched iTunes and the Apple App Store to provide Apple specific software to their clients.
Brand Identity
Brand identity refers to a specific characteristic of a brand; such as a symbol, design or a term, which distinguishes the product from those of the other competitors. During the initial stages of marketing, brand identity was primarily used to distinguish the products of a company from those of another company. The primary concept behind brand identity is to understand the competitors, business environment as well as the firms well and then to create strategies which focus on improving one’s own brand. Having a strong brand identity may allow a firm to enjoy strong loyalty from the customers, which may even allow them to charge a premium price for their products. For the purpose of creating strong brand identity a company should be able to understand their customers’ behavior, beliefs and other prime product as well as the service attributes.
It should be mentioned that compared to the other competitors in the market, Apple Inc has done a strong job of separating itself from their key competitors, which has also allowed them to charge a premium price for their products. In the case of Apple Inc brand identity has been a major step in the branding strategy of Apple Inc. The primary strategy Apple Inc used for promoting their product was by using a simple lifestyle strategy, which focused on promoting easy to use products. Initially the main strategy of Apple Inc has been on tapping onto the emotions of their customers and then coming up with innovative products. Their brand identity as well as their brand positioning is strongly reliant on the imagination, lifestyle and the aspirations of their customers.
Brand positioning refers to the setting up a certain perception of a product or service on the mindset of the customers, which they have targeted. Brand positioning helps in setting up a perception on the minds of the customers in terms of the organization, brand or maybe a specific product. Similar to any other organization, both brand identity and brand positioning are important factors for the branding strategy of Apple Inc as well. The main marketing strategy of Apple focuses on what the customer can do with the product itself, instead of just selling or marketing it as yet another phone.
For a company like Apple Inc which is facing strong competitions from companies like Google Inc and Samsung, maintaining a strong brand identity and brand positioning is extremely crucial for it long-term success. So far, they have succeeded in separating their products and services from those of their competitors, ultimately giving them the freedom to charge a premium price for their products from their customers. They have also succeeded in creating a very strong customer base for their products, which consists of extremely loyal customers. Therefore, both brand identity and brand positioning are crucial factors for the branding of any company and Apple Inc is no different.
Strong branding strategies have allowed Apple Inc to enjoy a rather good success rate of revenues and profits made in the 1st quarter of 2013 and experts have forecasted their sales to increase further in the next three quarters during this year as well. Experts have forecasted that this trend is likely to be followed in the next year as well. Hence this proves that their branding strategy is indeed working quite well to their benefit.
Apple Inc is renowned for constantly innovating new products every now and then which has been a major contributor to its stable growth and constantly successful business performance. In order to cope better with the needs of their customers they have both retail as well as online stores, so that customers can shop at their convenience from anywhere they want to.
Competition faced by Apple Inc.
Nowadays, Apple Inc is facing intense competition as competitors are coming up with new and better quality products. One of the major drawback of their products is their operating systems are not compatible with other devices whereas the competitors products are. Therefore, they are losing out a significant part of the market share. The recent success of the Android App market stands as a major threat to Apple. This is because the Android based OS is quite compatible with a lot of devices whereas, Apple Inc’s software are not. Apart from this, their major product the Apple iTune is also subject to intense competition from other strong competitors such as Samsung.
On a positive side, the demand for their products is quite high, and the recent launch and success of iPhone 5 has further strengthened its prospects. In addition, winning lawsuits against competitors who have tried to copy their products and winning them could be quite financially beneficial for them. For instance, they had won a lawsuit against Samsung, their biggest competitor in the smart phone market. In addition, the demand for the smart-phone and the tablet market is increasing at an impressive rate which means better prospects for them.
Integrated Marketing Communications
Integrating Marketing Communications is a relatively new term, which has emerged in the 20th century. There are numerous broad definitions of Integrating Marketing Communications; one of the most renowned one states that it is the integration of a number of separate marketing disciplines; all aimed towards achieving the marketing goals of the company. Such integration takes place during the very initial stages of the marketing plan, usually at the beginning of the plan itself. The Integrated Marketing Communication requires the marketer to understand and then create strategies aimed towards understanding and then tapping onto the needs of their customers, which Apple Inc has succeeded in applying.
The entrance of Apple in the white hot market was not by accident. It took years of determination, and hard work for Apple Inc to get where it is today. A lot of Apple’s competitors in the PC market where quite determined in the beginning; however, their performance soon plummeted which was the case for companies such as Dell and Compaq. Apple on the other hand, had been constantly focusing on improving the quality and providing better quality products to their customers. Additionally, they also used other product lines; such as, iPod music players, to revive customers and to be able to attract them to their other initiatives such as the Personal computer line of theirs’.
With respect to the integrated marketing communications strategy, Apple Inc uses a combination of personal selling, sales promotion, public relations and advertising techniques to the purpose of promotion. They use a wide range of techniques; such as billboards, newspapers, television, trains, and email across the world, with one common purpose which is to promote their products and make as many customers as possible. All of the ads used by Apple Inc are eye-catchy and they have one main purpose, which is to promote their brand and products all over the world.
Until now, Apple has used Integrated Marketing Communications for blending a lot of important marketing components together to ensure that a consistent level of message is delivered to the customers in terms of the product as well as the services offered by the company. Irrespectively of passing so many decades in business, the core ideology of Apple Inc has not changed and they have been constantly innovating and coming up with new and innovative hardware and software. They have also focused on providing a superior personal computing experience to their customers; especially the young generation of adults; such as, students, professionals and educators.
With the help of the Integrated Marketing Communication, Apple Inc has been able to able to position itself as a premium product in the market. This has ultimately allowed them to charge a premium price for their products. This premium pricing strategy has also allowed them to charge a higher price for their products as a result for which they could reap greater profits as well. To further support this premium pricing strategy, Apple Inc does not provide any form of discounts on their products.
Compared to its competitors like Google Inc and Samsung, Apple Inc has been quite strict about its product quality and they even delayed their shipments but were unwilling to compromise with the quality of their products. As such, whenever they did face any major issue they always reacted to solve it in the swiftest way. In terms of the existence of substitute products; the threat is quite less for Apple Inc, as few companies can provide such unique products as them.
Conclusion
All in all, the Integrated Marketing Communication has helped Apple to use a number of techniques to their benefit and hence improved their promotional activities even further. Today, they are considered one of the best companies in the world and they continue to grow, mainly attributable to their strong marketing activities, surrounding around the concept of Integrated Marketing Communications. Whether Apple Inc intends to change their marketing strategy in the future will be a thing to ponder next in the future. Meanwhile, Apple is facing stiff competition in the hardware as well as the software market due to their closest competitors; Samsung and Google. So far, there marketing strategy has allowed them to ensure a competitive advantage over their competitors.
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