Apple Brand Marketing Campaigns - Research Paper Example

?Apple Inc. brand marketing campaigns Brand marketing campaigns or Branding is one of the key issue while planning a product strategy and also plays an optimal role in influencing the consumers’ mind, when the buying decision is about to be made. As Aaker (2004) points out, building a strong brand is a useful tool to establish not only the identity and image of an organization in the market as well as in the development of a solid and loyal customer base. That is, consumers will always go for and respect companies, which have a strong and longstanding brand image. Branding is the major issue in planning a product strategy. So, to develop a particular brand with a strong image and standing, organizations should have long term investment strategies, inbuilt with thorough planning. To build that kind of brand image, organizations will come up with brand marketing campaigns before and after the launch of the new products or services, which will entice and impress upon the eyes, ears and thereby the minds of the intended consumers. Then, when the launched products or services live up to the expectations of the campaigns and becomes successful, it will create an optimal impact for the organization, bringing in more consumers. Aaker (2004) discussed that a strong brand is a helpful and useful tool to establish an image and status for the organization, which in will influence the client to go the organization’s products, thereby building a solid and loyal customer franchise. Apple Inc. is one organization, which has been able to achieve this perfectly with its effective marketing campaigns. Srivastavaa and Thomas (2010) validates this fact by stating that Apple’s brand marketing campaigns has been one of its key components to its success, as it helped it to develop an positive brand image, which in turn played an important role in how consumers viewed it as a company, and importantly influenced them to buy its wide range of products. Apple Inc. started building a strong brand in the 1980s and 1990s, with campaigns like the Super Bowl commercial titled “1984”, the “Think Different campaign” in 1990s, etc. According to Kahney (2002), John Sculley, the former CEO at Apple Inc., increased Apple advertising budget from $15 million to $100 million in early 90s, and the current CEO, Steve Jobs spent close to $100 million in the marketing campaigns of iMac alone. With these spending and effective marketing campaigns, Apple Inc. was able to create a positive corporate identity, which greatly appealed to the client base, and importantly made them to support Apple Inc. even during its worst times. That is, when Apple’s products did not do well and when the company faced tough financial crisis, its brand image and the resultant consumers’ affinity towards it, only helped it to survive. As stated by marketer Marc Globe, “Apple is about imagination, design and innovation. It goes beyond commerce. This business should have been dead 10 years ago, but people said we've got to support it.” (qtd. in HWM, 2004). Chernatony & McDonald (2003) further adds up by stating, when a product or a service has a strong brand image, “customers perceive them as having value over and above that of the ‘equivalent’ commodity, or in excess of the sum of the price of the product’s or service’s constituent parts”. After a resurge due to its strong brand image, Apple Inc. was able to further elevate its corporate identity in the consumers’ mind with the launch of its successful flagship product, iPod in 2001. Its worldwide success gave Apple a strong corporate identity of a technological major, who can come up with products, which are innovative, advanced and multi-purpose. That is, Apple’s products came to be recognized by consumers as high-end information and communications technology hardware, manufactured by a strong organization (Potter, 2006). In 2006, Apple Computers' survival and success hinged on two new initiatives - incorporation of Intel Processors to its PC's and its plans to succeed in digital music through iPods. As music business is a thriving industry, Apple wanted to capture a major share through iPod. Before iPod, the portable music players were in the form of Walkmans, but they had many restrictive features. For example, Walkmans needed external memory in the form of cassettes and CD's to play songs, even then only a limited number of songs can be played, there were limitations in battery power, etc. On the other hand, iPod with superior innovations counteracted all these restrictive features by coming with advanced features, and importantly marketed them to its prospective customer base, which paved the way for Apple to enter music business. That is, iPods with a small at the same time 'roomy' inbuilt hard drives gave the customers the option to store high number of songs. Taking this feature as its main USP, Apple launched brand marketing campaigns in various mass mediums, thereby influencing the customer to view this feature with a lot more attention. As the customers can store and listen to many songs for an extendable period, it became great hit and become one of Apple’s flagship products. Apple as part of brand marketing campaigns focuses on iPods’ sleek design with trademark white earphones, which gave it an enticing look. From the functionality aspect, iPods with its "click wheel" helped the customer to handle many controls easily. So, all these favorable aspects about iPod, aided Apple to build a strong branded product, influencing and bringing in many customers, thereby making a big bang in the music business. As part of its brand extension strategy and to provide many value added benefits to the customer base, Apple launched iTunes Music Store, an online service which offered downloadable songs for the visitors for a nominal price of 99 cents. As this move enabled the customers to download their favorite songs to the computer and then transfer it to the iPod, they were able to listen to all their favorite songs in their iPod. As Apple had a quality music player, and an avenue to download and listen to many songs with that music player, Apples' move into the music business had positive and optimal rationales, thereby making its’ brand marketing campaign a successful one. With the launch of iPod and iTunes store, Apple possesses the needed resources and capabilities to be successful in the music hardware and software sales business, thereby enticing optimal number of customers to its products. Then, Apple's decision to come up with iPod that is compatible with Car audio systems has also gave it, a crucial brand image, thereby influencing customers’ mindset, particularly the ones who owned a car. That is, Apple particularly marketed this feature prominently influencing and bringing in a sizable number of customers. As car audio systems compatible iPods can store high number of songs and enable people traveling in cars especially for longer distances to listen to good number of audio songs, it is a good purchase for the customers, thereby giving more success to Apple. The other resource related to iPod, which optimized the success of Apple's hardware and software sales is the exploding iPod accessory market. In 2006, Apple conceived the idea of charging 10% of the wholesale price of any accessory that carried its "Made for iPod" logo. This strategy and the habit of iPod users to use many accessories have given Apple important resources to develop further. The other advantage with this brand marketing campaigns is that, a positive identity got bestowed on Apple, that its products are diverse and highly adaptive. That is, they can be used to accommodate diverse media and other applications, and can be modified with a variety of peripherals. (Casadesus-Masanell & Hervas-Drane, 2010). Although, Apple Computers, Inc. got changed its name to Apple, Inc. in 2007, it wisely kept its basic logo. Even now, Apple Inc. continues to use the one basic logo of Apple, but with different colors and appearances, to identify with its corporate identity and its entire range of products. As further stated by Simmons, Thomas and Truong (2010), Apple Inc. while diversifying from computers to other technological products, made sure that it builds on its existing image, logo and branding strategies, so that it do not need to reinvent their entire corporate identity, and avoid confusing the customers with a deluge of images. As stated above, customers will be mainly influenced with a brand, if it is longstanding and the thing that has to be longstanding is its logo. Although, companies modify their basic logo design, when they add new services, and also as part of its reinventing exercises, it could sometimes cause confusions and lack of brand recall in customers’ mind. So, Apple’s brand marketing strategy of keeping its basic logo of Apple and just changing or modifying its colors, helped it to influence the customers optimally, as they get some sort of ‘high’ or even excitement, when they see that Apple logo. In addition, Apple Inc. is able to positively influence consumers’ mind by coming up with products with maximum human ‘touch’, and thereby becoming a key and visible component of people’s lifestyle. That is, Thompson, Rindfleisch and Arsel (2006) points out that one of the aspects in which Apple Inc. has differed from its competitors is that, it is able to evoke a personal identity among its customers. They further add that each organization including Apple Inc. will have a strong relationship with particular or a prospective consumer segment, who view the company’s products as an extension and a key part of their life style. Extension in the sense, those products are viewed as a key part of their daily day to day living, and also as part of special occasions. That is, in real world, logic is not the main driver of most buying decisions. Normally, people would buy the products on the basis of how those fit into their functional needs.. However, it is not the case all the time, because consumers other times feel and believe that certain companies like Apple Inc. could understand their needs and speak to them. Customers see the value in the consistency of performance of Apple’s products and in the way they feel about the company's business style. If the consumers view so, they will tend to associate the performance of the products, with the identity or image of the organization. Ashton and Stacey (2009) validates this aspect by stating that the consumers, who see the value in the consistency of Apple’s products and its brand image, will start to positively feel about the company’s business style, thereby they will start to emotionally identify with their image, goals, services, values, etc. When a customer starts to emotionally identify with the company, he/she will start viewing the company’s products including the soon-to-be launched products, as part of daily lifestyle and will start to visualize using those products. After successfully crossing over the tough times in mid-90s’ because of its brand image, Apple Inc. with its iPod and iPhone has been able to become a strong brand and a strong organization. As further stated by Lantos, Brady and McCaskey (2009), any new product from Apple Inc., are eagerly anticipated by the media and importantly by the intended consumers, with a lot of buzz surrounding the launch. One of the best examples is the hype and hoopla surrounding the launch of Apple’s iPhone. When it’s CEO, Steve Jobs launched the product to the media in 2007 at Macworld, it captured the imagination of the various people, and it reached its crescendo, when people started queuing in front of the stores selling iPhone all through the night, before its launch day. It was on the similar lines as well for the launch of iPad. With Apple already successful with its Mac Pcs and its iPhones, people expected a lot from the PC tablet, iPad. Thus, it is abundantly clear, that Apple with its line of successful products and the surrounding brand marketing campaigns, is able to optimally influence the customers and have pushed them to go to any limits to get an Apple product. From this perspective, it is clear that Apple’s brand architecture tries to achieve both short term as well as long term goals. Well-developed and coherent brand architecture will help organizations to create an overall marketing strategy including international strategy for its current as well as future products. “it provides a framework to leverage strong brands into other markets, assimilate acquired brands, and rationalize the firm’s international branding strategy” (Douglas and Craig, 2001). Some of the main strengths of Apple Inc are its large size and reach, diverse and highly functionally adaptive products, and thereby high brand recognition. Although, Windows was its main competitor and the competitor, which has a strong brand image, Apple has been try to coexist with it, without diluting its strong image. For example, one of its important capabilities of Apple’s products particularly its flagship iPod is, its Windows connectivity. That is, as most of the PCs all over the world run on Windows and with many customers of iPod using computers with Windows, it was essential to have Windows connectivity for iPods. So, Apple’s introduction of iPod for Windows in 2003 was an important resource or capability, which enabled Apple to reach and influence more customers’ minds, and thereby sell more iPods and make it a leader in music and software business. Thus, it is clear from the above review, that Apple’s brand marketing campaigns from 1980’s till now has been able to create a strong brand image for its products, and thereby positively influence consumers’ minds References Aaker, D. (2004). Brand Portfolio Strategy: Creating Relevance, Differentiation, Energy, Leverage, and Clarity. Free Press. Ashton, W. B and Stacey, G. S. (2009). “Technical intelligence in business: understanding technology threats and opportunities.” International Journal of Technology Management, 10(1): 79-104. Casadesus-Masanell, R., and Hervas-Drane, A. (2010). “Peer-to-Peer File Sharing and the Market for Digital Information Goods.” Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, 19(2): 333-373. Douglas, S, Craig, S. P & Nijssen. E. J. (2001). “Executive Insights: Integrating Branding Strategy Across Markets: Building International Brand Architecture.” Journal of International Marketing, 9(2): 97-114 Globe, M. (2004). Distribution of the Brand. HWM. SPH Magazines Kahney, L. (2002). The cult of Mac. No Starch Press. Lantos, G. P., Brady, D. L and McCaskey, P. H. (2009). “New product development: an overlooked but critical course.” Journal of Product & Brand Management, 18(6): 425 – 436. Potter, B. (2006). “New threat of Apple Mac OS X.” Network Security, 26(2): 4-5. Simmons, G., Thomas, B and Truong, Y. (2010). “Managing i-branding to create brand equity.” European Journal of Marketing, 44 (9/10):1260-1285 Srivastavaa, R. K and Thomas, G. N. (2010). “Managing brand performance: Aligning positioning, execution and experience.” Journal of Brand Management, 17: 465– 471. Thompson, C. J., Rindfleisch, A and Arsel, Z. (2006). “Emotional Branding and the Strategic Value of the Doppelganger Brand Image.” Journal of Marketing, 70 (1): 50-64 Read More