Brand Management: Apple

Introduction

The report will discuss in detail about Apple and its brand management. The company was founded in 1976 by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak (Keller et al., 2011). The company was predominantly a manufacturer of personal computer which initially faced low market shares and rocky kind of sales in the year 1990s. The brand is known for its designs, manufacturing quality and marketing for mobile communication and media devices and many more. Apple also happens to sell variety of software, networking solutions and application (Keller et al., 2011). The report will discuss in detail about the brand audit of Apple. 

Apple – Objectives Scope and Approach

The vision and mission statement of the company keeps changing with changing time. The current vision statement of the company stated that the company believes in the fact that it is a face of the whole wide world to make some good and exclusive product (Katie, 2012). The company constantly believes in innovation and yet a simple user friendly product. There is a belief that the company needs to control the initial technology which is actually behind the product and the company will also have to participate in the market where it can make important contribution. The company firmly believes in focusing on few so that a great product can be developed and it can create some meaningful impact on the society (Katie, 2012). The vision statement is very detailed and it also shows a comprehensive approach by the company by making sure continuous success and development. 

The mission statement of the company have also changed over a period of time and the company also considers with changing time and changing customer demand it is important to change the landscape of the business that impacts all kind of possibilities of what this brand can actually do (Katie, 2012). The company has the power to identify the changing market and the industry and the current mission statement of the company is to design best personal computers in the world and in addition to it also focus on the OS X, iWork and many other professional software (King., 2011). The company actually leads the revolution in music industry with its iTunes online music store. At the same time the company has reinvented the phone with constant renovation in iPhone and also App store (King., 2011). It has redefined the future of mobile phone and media with iPad.

While vision statement is detailed, the mission statement is very particular that only shows what a company can achieve and its future endeavors. Details about specific product lines also focus on the current situation of the company (King., 2011).

Apple – an Introduction

Apple Inc. is a multinational company which is primarily based in America. The company focuses on features like designs, manufacturing and software products. The company actually known as hardware products that also happens to include many Macintosh computers and iPhones (????????., 2014). The software of the company actually focuses on Mac OS X system or the media browser based on iTunes or the iLife that actually suites all the multimedia software or iWork that is specifically for productivity software and many more. The company is operating in all over the world with more two hundred and fifty retail stores in more than nine countries (????????., 2014). The company also has online presence where a lot of hardware and software products are on sale.

Background about the Industries

Apple is a technology based company and this industry actually centers on the competition and constant innovation and at the same time application of different kind of technology that give some of the most important and complex competitive environment (????????., 2014). Here it is easy to apply various concepts of much strategic analysis.

There are very few industries that have actually seen a lot of upheaval as far as technology is concerned and telecom industry is actually one of them which are constantly on the rise from last ten years. Also change in technology has been one characteristic that is required in every sector of the economy not just because of the constant influence from digitization or new kind of communication and many more (Pratap and Bhaskar, 2014). The main stress is on the innovation and its strategic management with constant change in technology. There are number of technology based industries where the main focus is on emerging market as well as on industries where technology is an important part of the competition (Pratap and Bhaskar, 2014).

Consumer Analysis (Trends, Motivation, Perceptions, Needs, Segmentation, Behavior)

Analysis of the consumer behavior is actually a mixture of many things like sociology, economics and psychology. It is therefore is the analysis of people when they purchase or kind of product they purchase or how a single product is bought and the intention behind that purchase (Lapel et al., 2011). The main aim is to appreciate the decision of the consumer’s actions in the market and the point of this complete process is to decide what exactly it is that buyer understands while making the purchase (Pratap and Bhaskar, 2014). It can be any variable like behavioral, demographics and psychographics. The overall process will understand the overall influence that many categories make like group, friends, reference, family and general society.

Following are the stages of consumer behavior while buying an Apple product: -

Problem recognition: in this stage a consumer actually perceives the need and there is a motivation to immediately solve the problem. Here motivation is an important factor (Pratap and Bhaskar, 2014).

Information search: after the recognition of problem, the consumer search for the right information for the product in order to make the purchase decision. It’s a perception formation stage (Pratap and Bhaskar, 2014).

Evaluation of information: the consumer in this stage compares various brands and products. This stage is responsible for attitude formation (NIFT, 2014).

Decision: in this stage, the consumer determines which product to purchase. It is a decision making stage. This stage focus on the integration of all the research (Lapel et al., 2011).

Evaluation post- purchase: after the purchase the consumer evaluates the purchase decisions and learn about various factor that he or she may or may not have done while making the purchase decision (NIFT, 2014).

Apple always believed in empowering the consumer. The mantra has always been that more than a product, people sells and if one looks carefully at the commercial of this brands then there will be a lot of people with happy faces and colorful background. The focus will not be on the product but the experience it is creating among people. The company takes a lot of time in making a perfect user interface for people (NIFT, 2014). The main aim of the company is attract the attention of people through the kind of experience they are giving to people and inviting them to become the part of the community. It is important to use and experience the feel good factor associated with the product (Aiqing, 2010).

Brand Inventory

Elements, Current Marketing Programs, POPs, PODs

The company has extensively expanded the product portfolio and also emerged as one of the most successful and innovative multinational companies in the world (Aiqing, 2010). Like for example, the introduction of iPod in the year 20001 and the music availability on internet and development of app store iTunes that has completely revolutionized the music industry through constant promotion of digital music (NIFT, 2014). These two revolutionary products have not just created but also supported an amazing ecosystem in order to sell and purchase music online. The company was involved in starting an era of tablets and smart phones with iPhone and iPad in last few years (Aiqing, 2010). These two products are consumer friendly electronic devices that have revamped the way smart phones are manufactured and developed. In order to understand the overall success of this iconic product requires a lot of recognition and appreciation of the marketing strategy of the brand (Lapel et al., 2011). This is important to understand that intricacy of the strategy has actually played an important role in pitching the brand and product to a level of huge popularity and massive approval (George, 2013). 

The main aim of the company is to increase the demand of the product through differentiation and this make the product unique and attractive product for the consumer. The product is constantly compared to the competitors and despite all the competition, the brand has succeeded in creating market demand for the products, where a lot of power is given to product differentiation, innovation, and brand loyalty over prices (Lapel et al., 2011).

Branding Strategies

The core marketing strategy of the company is its product strategy. The main reason why so many Apple products are successful is that these products are user friendly and at the same time it is highly intuitive as compared with other competitors in the market (George, 2013). They are actually completely unassuming since the design is simple, uniformly built and based on unique design. After all the simplicity, the products give a unique user friendly experience through offering many innovative features and different designs (Jinjin, 2013). The products provided by Apple are not something which was not introduced before by the competitors. In fact, features like ultrathin laptops were introduced long before, however these products offered by Apple have topped in competition because of the experience and overall usability of the product and unique consumer experience. Apple involves in a rather retroactive and at the same time a proactive approach which is a part of its product strategy (Jinjin, 2013).  Most importantly, the company develops the product which is based on the present products of its competitors and it also improves it by reducing all the undesirable qualities and at the same time also integrating all kind of differentiating characteristics (Jinjin, 2013).

Brand Portfolio Analysis

The company has an extensive but rather controlled product portfolio. The portfolio helps in creating a unique and uniform usability of the product and again a unique consumer experience (Bulsiewicz, 2013). Like all the music experience have to pair with an iTunes or the app store otherwise the experience will be incomplete. The user interface of these devices also focuses on same kind of functional and design principles that are simple yet create a very strong sense of familiarity. It is also essential to understand that a specific user of an Apple device can be benefitted of this homogeneous feature through Apple ID (Bulsiewicz, 2013). This allows the users to manage the digital identity, and device preferences all across different devices that allow transition which is seamless. Apple products also help in creating a halo impact and since every product is some or other way complementing other products, here consumer will also choose to stick with the brand rather going for different product from different manufacturers (Bulsiewicz, 2013). It also helps in creating an assortment of so many product and different consumer experience. The marketing strategy consists of developing and promoting the complimentary products and services (Spiro, 2013). The company has always involved in iconic and important products there were actually coupled with establishing brand and the company now actually enjoys a lot of loyal consumers (Torelli, 2013).  

Brand Exploratory

Brand Positioning Analysis:

Apple has always experienced record breaking sales and high performance however the company never involved in any extensive strategy for marketing for their smart phone apart from pricing strategies and publicities through media relations (Roll, 2010).  It is important to understand here that advertising budget is minimal for the smart phones and Apple has never involved in advertising the product through broadcast media at the same time it sometimes manufactures content that are can be exposed through to certain messages that can be delivered through different traditional medium since it can be created and at the same time paid by different network carriers (Bleedorn, 2015). 

Consumer Positioning Aanalysis

The products offered by Apple are expensive as compared with same kind of products from competitors and an iPhone can be sometime twice or thrice expensive than any Android smart phone of other competitors. Same is true for personal computers however; the premium pricing can also be part of marketing strategy of the company (Kraten, 2015). The high price points pricing strategy that can help the company to promote and also maintain a more favorable kind of perception especially among the loyal kind of buyers. After all, there are customers who actually believe that there are so many expensive products that have exceptional level of reputation and at the same time also represent exceptional level of quality (Watch, 2015). Therefore, the products of Apple are positioned as higher quality over the competitors through unique pricing strategy. It is also essentially important to understand the fact that luxury has a psychological association with premium kind of pricing. Apple products are in fact luxury goods that are actually willing to pay something extra in order to maintain a more satisfying sense of indulgence (Seddon, 2015).

Summary of Competitor Analysis

The product strategy of Apple is to give a premium and unique kind of user experience and one of the methods, company does this through its product design. It is very important to understand that strategy followed for iPhone (De Chernatony, 2010). So unlike other smart phones which have low quality build because of the plastic content involved, Apple has always used premium material for its product.

As far as competition is concerned, there are brands that actually scored above average in the smart phone and computer categories are Apple, Samsung, LG, HP, Dell and Sony.  Samsung is considered one of the next big things in the market. Then there is HTC and Google in smart phone category. All this is a result of advertising and branding (Brand et al., 2015). 

Brand Equity Evaluation

Aaker’s Model

Aaker has introduced different views for brand equity which are set of five categories as far as brand assets and liabilities are concerned (Aaker and Joachimsthaler, 2012). These features are actually linked to a brand that can add or subtract from the value it provide by different product or services to the customers. Following are the categories of brand assets: -

Brand association
Brand loyalty
Brand awareness
Perceived quality
Other proprietary assets like trademark, patents and channel relationships. As per Aaker, a specific and important concept is to build brand equity and this can be associated with brand identity (Aaker and Joachimsthaler, 2012). Brand identity can be defined as a unique set of brand associations that shows different views for which brand stands for and also promises the customer for the best quality (Aaker and Joachimsthaler, 2012).

According Aaker, brand identity consists of twelve dimensions that are organized around four kinds of perspectives which are discussed in detail: -

Brand as product which consists of product scope, product attributes, uses, users and country of origin.

Brand as organization which consists of attributes of organization and local versus global (Aaker and Joachimsthaler, 2012).

Brand as person which consist of brand customer relationship and brand personality

Brand as symbol consist of visual or metaphors and heritage of brand (Aaker and Joachimsthaler, 2012).

Recommendations and Conclusion

Apple possesses major strengths in term of market presence and quality and it is important for the company to make use of the strengths in order to exploit the opportunity to expand the network as far as distribution is concerned. It is also important for the company to address organizational weaknesses (Oswald and Oswald, 2012). In addition to this, Apple can also utilize a strong kind of brand image and with the focus on rapid innovation; the company can successfully develop and launch new and innovative product lines. At the same time, the firm also faces challenges from aggressive competition and threat of imitation which can be a huge issue through a much stronger patent portfolio and in addition to it; there is constant innovation to make sure that competitive advantage of Apple products is strong even when competitors try to catch up with it (Wheeler, 2012).

Reference

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