Marketing Strategy And Competitive Positioning Of Apple

Question:

Discuss About The Marketing Strategy Competitive Positioning?

Apple Inc. Is a global organization developing and selling consumer electronics and software products. The company head office lies in Cupertino, California, USA.  Apple Inc is founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne in April 1976. The hardware products made by the company are Iphone, Mac Personal Computers, Ipad and Apple Smart watches.  The product is working on the MacOS and IOS operating system. The company gained recognition in the market after the launch of premier Apple Series.  The company is the largest IT Company by the revenue and the largest mobile company after Samsung. The total employee strength of Apple is around 116,000 as on October 2016 and maintains 498 retail store across 22 countries. The brand enjoys competitive position due to a high level of brand loyalty (Apple Inc. 2017).

The Iphone 7 and Iphone 7 Plus are manufactured, designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The company announced the launch of Smartphone on September 7, 2016, at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco. The phone was launched by CEO Tim Cook. The releasing date was September 16, 2016.  The company sporadically launched the phone globally throughout September and October 2016. The devise is comparable to the Iphone 6S, Although there are innovative provision in the Smartphone that are: new-fangled colour alternative, a new capacitive, stationary home button, and no 3.5 mm headphone jack with a water and dust resistance technology. The internal hardware is upgraded into a heterogeneous quad-core system-on-chip. This has improved graphics performance of the new phone. Moreover, company has upgraded the rear-facing camera to 12 megapixels (Apple, 2017).

Iphone 7 and 7S targets people aged from 18-35, which mostly includes the youth population. The product is largely popular among students and young working professionals (Kim and KO, 2012).

An Iphone consumer uses the features as trendy look, consumer responsive technology, sensitive touch, innumerable applications, multimedia, etc. The foremost motivating power towards buying an Iphone is the brand name itself. It creates a sense of pride in an individual. Such a person is typically image conscious which means, he is very much aware of his position or image in society, among friends and peer group. The Iphone users are stylish, tech-savvy, attention seeker and are habitually an outgoing person (Magusara, 2017.)

The Iphone users depict most common traits which include an urge to spend lavishly and to choose branded products only. The consumers are most likely to socialize and indulge in sociable actions. People do get influenced by the social circle and are ready to make an investment in technology up-gradation. People using an Iphone desperately wait for the launch of the next phone in the series. It is due to the influencing behavior of people in the surrounding. It is mostly affected by the behavior of the people in the surroundings (Graham, 2008).

Target Audience

Influencers do affect the decision making in the case of Iphone users. People do get affected by the friend circle and peer group. People using Iphone derive the first hand information from friends or family members that influence the buying behavior. Dealers do not play a significant role in influencing the buyer. They are largely affected by the peer group and circle.

The core competency of Iphone 7 remains bringing an outstanding experience through superb user interfaces. The distinct feature of Iphone 7 and 7s includes new-fangled colour alternative, a new capacitive, stationary home button, and no 3.5 mm headphone jack with a water and dust resistance technology. This makes the product at ease of use and stylish product (Fromm and Garton, 2013).

Since its launch, Apple is re-vitalizing the brand and to gain today's position. Steve Jobs, Apple's co-Founder, has described Apple as the largest mobile company in the world. The company renamed itself to Apple Inc.  It is this was a significant move, signifying Apple's move beyond being more than a computer company (Dou, Lim, Su, Zhou and Cui, 2010).  The product is based on a market differentiation strategy, and has positioned itself as an adaptable, suitable, value-added gadget for individual and specialized use (Lovelock and Patterson, 2015). The marketing strategy of Iphone 7 and 7s depend on the convenience of having one device for all purposes. The brand is using marketing advantage through promotional strategies (De Mooij, 2013)

Apart from its individual position in the local and international market the brand has gained a competitive market position against Samsung. People are more likely to inclined towards Apple Iphone due to multiple factors like brand position, effectiveness and price. People are ready to pay more for the phone that is available at an excess price (Kingsnorth, 2016).

While positioning the brand in the market it is evident to manage the position in an effective way. The company is the largest IT Company by the revenue and the largest mobile company after Samsung. In this way the product is at a competitive position against the other premier brands in the market. With a definite market positioning strategy and serving in a market as a premier brand, Iphone 7 and 7s has been able to gain a competitive market position. It is due to the market capabilities and sustainable objectives. The premier priced brand has an ability to develop itself in a significant way by indulging in a better market functions. It is able to manage the concrete marketing objectives by deliberately helping the organizational goals (Berthon et al 2012).

Factors Affecting Brand Loyalty

The brand is known for its aggressive market communication strategy. It is able to create competitive advantage in the market in order to gain sustainable goals. The brand is working ahead of the technology by putting a lot of emphasis on the Research and Development. However they are giving more priority to the Marketing and Communication strategies.  There primary Focus is on creating brand loyalty and significance customer satisfaction. (Doole and Lowe, 2008; Blakeman, 2014).  Culture at Apple is considered to be effective in nature to strengthen the business  Apple is developing small teams to integrate the work by keeping a close attention on each and every individual in the team.  They are using simple technology to gain individual attention. They are using different promotional tools to integrate customer interest.  The focus of the ICT is to integrate brand loyalty and faith on a long run.

The latest feature of the brand with an effective market strategy has helped in managing the brand name in the market. It is effectively using the message strategy to gain competency in the market. They are however able to manage the ICT through its effective marketing program based on communicating efficiently. In this way they are able to manage the critical jobs to the extent of gaining organizational objective. The Apple launch is one of the anticipated activities seen in the current technology market context. The brand launch and strategies are a lot of hype created by the brand from one month prior to the launch (Mohr, Sengupta and Slater, 2009). The Software updates and App Store updates permit Apple to understand the product information, and helps utilizing the significance of fixing bugs. Icloud is used as a tool for consumers to shorten use of numerous apple products and to give Apple a plan of faithful customers. Trade shows- This is a way through which Apple thrive in its earliest days to attract customers through an effective brand strategy (Kohler, 2007).

The brand has a strategy to ensure its worth in the market through Simple, Sleek, Elegant, Innovative, techniques. The high priced products provide figure of excellence and robustness. The after service provided by the brand continues to work with customers subsequent to acquire consumers. Apple retail stores are situated in malls and high end shopping centres.

One of the important features of the brand is the quality and the renowned IOS operating system. Iphone 7 has all the effective features that distinguish it from the brand. Apple is able to spellbind its customers through a well-define market strategy. The hardware is compatible and run smoothly using the IOS software.  Thus high quality speed tends to be the reason behind the success of the brand.  Apple freely communicates the idea and establishes relationship directly with the customers that help in consistent growth (Armstrong et al 2014).

Market Differentiation Strategy

Iphone has a skimming price without any market comparison. The product is expensive and doesn’t attract any discount by.  However there are certain sales promotion and exchange offer otherwise there is no standard price is maintained across the market. The effective ICT used by the company is able to seek competitive advantage. The Apple launch is one of the projected activities seen in the current technology market context. The brand launch and strategies are a lot of hype created by the brand from one month prior to the launch.

 The product is available across the world and is known to provide an excellent service backup in all these countries.  They are targeting the premium customers. The brand is available in the high end localities (Baaghil, 2013). 

The company focus on an effective promotional strategy with a complete focus on effective promotion methods. They are launching the products through a distinguished marketing strategy where they are using commercial means to seek customer attention. The interesting thing about the brand is the aggressive marketing strategy through newspaper ads etc. This is how people are gaining awareness regarding the brand and coming up with the most attractive taglines for the new phone.

They follow an aggressive media strategy and put the market on alert before its launch. The brand is launched with an effective brand policy and positioning strategy. It is through an effective media launch and pre and post launch strategy that is followed in order to create distinct result. It is obvious in buyer knowledge at each contact point which includes products, shopping in Apple stores, and online. The Consumer Experience can be evaluated which depend upon Products simple to use, particularly on starting up through definite procedure.

Conclusion

To conclude, Apple is efficiently using the promotional mix strategy to create a value brand. The valuable market standing is created through a valuable market position. The company has gained a competitive advantage by cost leadership and through minimizing the operating cost and lowering the distribution cost. Iphone 7 is recognized in the market for its exceptional pricing model.

References

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