Apples Brand Identity and Advertising Strategy - Essay Example

An Analysis of Apple’s Brand Identity and Advertising Strategy Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Apple as a Brand 3 1The Journey So Far 3 2Brand Equity and Customer Franchise 3 2.Apple’s Brand - Marketing Architecture 4 2.1Integrated Marketing Communications in Branding 5 3.The Way Forward for Apple Inc. 6 Reference List 7 1. Apple as a Brand Over a period of more than three decades, Apple has established its brand image using its original range of product lines and innovative marketing strategies. Not only has Apple been able to prove its worth so far, but also gained immense popularity in the field of breakthrough technology and communication strategies (Apple, Inc., 2014). In 2012, Apple became the number one purveyor of smartphone, increasing its market share to 36.3 percent, representing an impressive 6.7 % within a year in the US (Apple Inc., 2014). With its gains in place, Apple has been giving a tight competition to Samsung Galaxy 3, as the later becomes the latest world’s best selling smart-phone. Apple still occupies a dominating position in the US markets. Even in Chinese markets, Apple has increased its share from 18.6 percent in September to 23.2 percent in January, 2013 (Patterson, 2014). From the beginning of 2011 to 2012, Apple’s overall market share rose from 18.8 percent to 25.1 (Finger, 2013; Marketing Minds, 2014). Through an in-depth analysis of the factors underlying its brand image, advertising and customer out-reach strategies; this paper wishes to analyze the success of Apple’s branding strategy and the ingenious business strategies that have been giving a long –term support to its customers, in terms of satisfaction, choice and specifications. 1.1 The Journey So Far Apple chooses to operate in some of the highly competitive markets, including the computer industry other than the consumer electronics industry and smart phone market and even the tablet market. The early years following its advent were extremely challenging, especially in comparison to the time when it started out with desktops in 1970s, followed by laptops in 1990s. The iPod was launched in the year 2001, followed by iPad in 2010 and now even resourceful with the latest introductions of Apple Pay and Apple Watch (Finger, 2013; Sanchez, 2014; Apple Inc., 2014). Presently, Apple Inc is one of the 10 top most of the 100 precious globally acclaimed brands with a net worth of $145 per share in cash, accounting for over 30 percent of the total market cap zero long-term debt in the year 2013 (Finger, 2013). It has been said about Apple’s brand image that its branding strategy focuses on emotions. That is to say, lifestyle, imagination, passions, hopes, dreams and aspirations all count. Above all, an interactive and simple yet elegant use of style is its forte. 1.2 Brand Equity and Customer Franchise The sectors of brand equity and customer sense of community are extremely well-defined in literature. The concept of customer equity as a management concept transcends the radical dimensions marketing and considers customer to be the focus of attention. This customer-centric view of the firm serves as the cornerstone for the firm’s all-round success. There are many factors which define the concept of customer equity management, including customer retention and lifetime value measurement (Neal and Strauss, 2008). Apple has been striking the right balance by creating a customer-friendly market-based growth and evaluating its assured return on investment (Blattberg, et al, 2001). It is oblivious through the sense of preference among customers for Apple products despite its premium-pricing structure. This strength in preference of Apple’s products has accrued to its profits and by reducing unwarranted costs. With state-of-art approach that fully understands all aspects of customer preferences, Apple has been consistently delivering innovative, elegant, and technologically- advanced product ranges. The motivation is not just to keep delivering unique products but to keep up with the integrity and brand promise of being a customer-oriented humanistic company. Till the recent times, Apple has been providing a well-coordinated and end-to-end supportive consumer experience for all of the company’s devices, such as, the Mac, iPhone and iPad, maintain its strong adherence to the digital hub through its iCloud (Finger, 2013). Furthermore, Apple deliberately continues this procedure of extending a supportive and interactive environment through an invigorating and interactive integration with the use of social media network such Twitter and Facebook, procurable through the iPhone, Mac and iPad (O’Grady, 2008). 2. Apple’s Brand - Marketing Architecture Apple deploys an innovative strategy for advertising its products. The solution is simple, its unique, simple, elegant, sleek, and multi-featured product design. These are the aspects of Apple that posits it ahead of its competitions. Their commercials are smart and eye-catching. This lends it the advantage to frequently change prices yet be in the market, in the face of rising competition in the hardware market. In all this, style of marketing becomes important because media play a cardinal role of conveying information to allure and involve the customers (Knox and Bickerton, 2007). This is attained through Apple’s stand-alone advertising approaches that epitomize integrating the band image and marketing the same. The concept of brand-marketing transcends the perimeters of branding through which a company tries to establish its mark. The brand relates to its market identity, like what they are, what they deal in and the quality of their service deliveries, etc. Through brand-marketing, a company’s reputation, trustworthiness and their brand image is put to the real test, in the hands of consumers. That is because; brand marketing influences the decisions of the customers, including end users or even businesses. This is critical as the customers perception is built on the instant knowledge acquired with no relation to past experiences. Therefore, a customer-awareness system must be built-in within the company structure (Fennis and Pryun, 2007). Apple’s customer-centric branding article is based upon the core philosophy of making people’s life easier. A company always wanting to make a human-connection to its customers is an ideal instance of an ideal branding strategy. In fact that is what makes Apple so successful. It utilizes an integrated approach of line extension and branding to ensure that the products are as per customer demands. The idea is to retain the customers for a long term through relationship-building and maintenance (Patterson, 2014). The uniqueness in the branding structure is in building multiple user-interfaces. For example, the touch-screen functionality of iPhone, also available in iPad and the frugal design elements of iTunes represent a radical representation of a visually striking yet simplified user interface (Finger, 2013). 2.1 Integrated Marketing Communications in Branding The success of a marketing strategy is in drawing innovative techniques for ultimate customer satisfaction. This is only acquired by integrating with the latest innovations and customer base in real time. This approach of an integrated communication platform helps to influence customer choice and preferences. The core dimensions revolve on attention, interest, desire and action to achieve a long term customer-relationship with retaining the earned brand-value. A company which understands their perception and fulfils their demand would always get its clients pleased. Additionally, a feedback system would give customers an opportunity to voice their opinions from time to time (Fennis and Pruyn, 2007; Neal and Strauss, 2008). Every launch of its devices and products is amid extensive publicity that attracts primarily customer attention. For example, before the launch of iPhone 4S, its smart and cutting-edge features, such as personal intelligent assistant (SIRI), faster dual core chip, eight megapixel camera were extensively covered and related out to the customers to invest in the new phone. The end result was satisfying as iPhone 4S sold over four million units in its opening weekend. In fact, the earnings were even higher than the anticipated projects of the prior launched iPad, as Apple’s one of the high-selling excellent inventions (Finger, 2013). Firstly, an understanding of customer attitudes, competitor positioning and technological advancements are made by the marketing team. This helps in connecting to the right customer and establishing their brand image (Knox and Bickerton, 2007). Secondly, the marketing team implements an awareness campaign or strategy to multiply the product experiences across diverse groups of customers. Thirdly, an integrated loop should be implanted within the marketing plan, which combines its unique brand image with a feedback oriented marketing system to amend changes depending upon the situation or audience (Fennis and Pruyn, 2007). Right from the beginning, Apple had been adhering to the progressions of digital hub. Until the year 2011, Apple was mostly concentrating in the area of computers, computer parts, mp3 players and various other software products, including its personal operating system (Finger, 2013). In the year 2001, company launched the iPod as a group-extension of handy music tools that were not present in its offering ranges previously. By the year 2011, the company was already a renowned brand in computers and earned a name for launching items which are simple to operate (Marketing Minds, 2014). The introduction of the iPhone in the year 2007 was a categorical extension of its unique range of mobile phone market products to explore the dynamics of the mobile phone market. The products in every category were constantly being shuffled as a part of the line extension (Apple Inc., 2014). 3. The Way Forward for Apple Inc. The above discussion has clearly highlighted on how Apple’s constant stride for technological innovation and customer loyalty puts it ahead of its competitors. Apple’s brand image has beckoned further expansion beyond US markets to Asia and far-east. Undoubtedly, Apple has been standing strong as a financially stable and steadily growing company. This definitely could be related to its consistent position of securing a steady number one position in terms of customer satisfaction for the ninth time in a row. Adorned with the reward of a high-level customer loyalty, the company’s brand is a revolution in itself that is absolutely undeterred despite its high-end pricing structures. The reason is its extensive research and investment on customer-friendly product design and digitization. Through constant line extensions and regular shuffling, Apple keeps rationalizing and improving. The integrated advertising and marketing communication lends a closed-looped structure from source to customers and back. The future looks bright for Apple Inc. and it is going to trace a steady growth pathway in the near future. Reference List Apple Inc., 2014. iPhone 6 & iPhone 6 Plus Arrive in 36 More Countries and Territories This Month, 2014. [online] Available at: https://www.apple.com/pr/library/2014/10/20Apple-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-Results.html [Accessed 14 January 2015]. Blattberg, C.R., Getz, G. and Thomas, S. J., 2001.Customer Equity: Building and Managing Relationships as Valuable Assets. Boston: Harvard Business Press, pp. 147-193. Fennis, B., M. and Pruyn, T. H., 2007. You are what you wear: Brand personality influences on consumer impression formation. Journal of Business Research, 60, pp. 634-639. Finger, R., 2013. Apple: Whats it Really Worth. [online] Available at :< http://www.forbes.com/sites/richardfinger/2013/03/27/apple-whats-it-really-worth/> [Accessed 13 January 2015]. Knox, S. and Bickerton, D., 2007. The Six Conventions of Corporate Branding. European Journal of Marketing, 37(8), pp. 998-1016. Marketing Minds, 2014. Apple’s Branding Strategy. [online] Available at: < http://www.marketingminds.com.au/apple_branding_strategy.html> [Accessed 13 January205] Neal, W. and Strauss, R., 2008. Value Creation: The Power of Brand Equity, 4th ed. London: Palgrave Macmillan. O’Grady, Jason. D., 2008. Apple. Inc. (Corporations That Changed The World). Connecticut: Greenwood. Patterson, M. S., 2014. Revenue from the Google Play store will overtake Apple’s app store in 2018. [online] Available at:http://qz.com/235992/revenue-from-the-google-play-store-will-overtake-apples-app-store-in-2018/ [Accessed 14 January 2015] Sanchez, A.L., 2014. The Tech Predict: 2018 ($years from now). [online] Available at: , [Accessed 14 January 2015]. Read More