Apple Incorporated and the Power of Its Brands - Essay Example

?Apple Incorporated and the power of its brands Introduction Apple Incorporated is part of Personal Computers Industry under the hardware sector. Itstoughest competitors in its industry include Microsoft, Dell, Google, Hewlett-Packard Company and many more. The presence of these key players in the Personal Computers Industry makes the competition intense for Apple Incorporated. This resulted to its being able to work out for its competitive advantage and that is to create a need for its offerings. The ultimate goal of Apple Incorporated is to dominate in the competition and become a cut above the other. Its goal is to substantially address the needs of its customers, but not until when it discovered the advantage of creating a need for its product and service offerings. The modern marketing emphasises that marketers are good at creating needs for their offerings (Boone and Kurtz, 2006; Kotler et al., 1999). In fact, Apple is very good at creating needs for its product and service offerings, the very basic foundation of how it tries to achieve its competitive advantage. However, as it continues to grow, Apple Incorporated has become highly recognized with its brands, which brings it at the top of the competition. Porter’s theory of competitive advantage applies to Apple Incorporated and its brands. The power of its brands is very important component of differentiation strategy (Porter, 1998). People simply associate the Apple brand with standard quality, reliability, and many other intrinsic values. This is due to the fact that brands simply emphasise attributes and meanings (Belch and Belch, 1998). In a highly capitalist world, brands have important value that could be maximised for profit making (Arvidson, 2006). Branding is a specific marketing strategy and as a way to enhance profitability, productivity and efficiency (Moor, 2007). Moor added that branding seeks to develop political message, corporate image, people, and behaviours. It is in these reasons Apple wanted to invest more in reconstructing, refining and enhancing its brands prior to becoming a cut above the other in its industry. As widely observed, the media have always been the integral parts of Apple’s success in achieving a powerful brand in the world. As a result, Apple has become an iconic brand because it came to a point of becoming a cultural icon with corresponding identity value (Holt, 2004). There are many strategies in doing this and they are integral parts of cultural branding principles. In this paper, the proponent tries to incorporate in the analysis how Apple Incorporated was able to successfully achieve or create the power of its brands using the media as integral parts of communication, a specific strategy in cultural branding principles (Holt, 2004). The discussion in particular includes media, brand development, and the concept of gratification of needs based on psychological perspective. Media and brand development Media are anything with spaces that have the capacity to allow marketing to take place in them (Moor, 2007). Space is very important for Moor as a specific site to develop relationships between brands and customers. She added that it is a communicative medium or opportunity for marketing to take place. Ads are specific forms of communications placed within a communicative medium (Cook, 2001). For many years, Apple Incorporated is using the media in order to promote its brands. Mac, iPod, iPhone, iPad and iTunes are the most important brands that are established by Apple with the aid of the media. In 2006, Apple’s ad budget is $338 million, $467 million in 2007, and $486 million in 2008 (Blakely, 2008; DeWitt, 2009). In 2009, Apple spent $501 million for Ad expense (DeWitt, 2009). There seems to be an increase in the budget allocated by Apple for its ads, but it is actually decreasing based on percentage of revenue; 5 percent in 2001 and 1.17 percent in 2009 (DeWitt, 2009). This means that the higher the revenue of Apple has become, the lesser it allocated budget for its promotional activities. This would mean that at some point, Apple is becoming more confident about its products. It is becoming more confident about its market share especially that its brand recall is substantially higher. Apple invests in creative and clever ads, stays off from low-cost media just to be distinguished among its competitors, which make its brands to speak for themselves resulting it to be one of the most recognizable brands in the world according to Interbrand’s 2009 report (DeWitt, 2009). It is in this reason that Apple significantly lowered its expenses on ads due to the fact that it substantially created a name in the market as a highly recognised brand in the world. For Apple, there is no point at all in trying to increase expenses on ads when it has already substantially gained recognition in the market and many potential customers around the world are readily following on its trends on innovation and cutting-edge technology. This does not mean that ads are no longer important for Apple. In fact, it continues to allocate budget for this marketing activity every year. However, Apple clearly used ads just to be able to promote its latest innovation on its service and product offerings, and as a way to create more need for its brand. On the other hand, these marketing activities through the media also continuously enhanced the power of high recall on certain products as tantamount to high brand recognition (Kirsh, 2009). The most common media for this are television, cable television, radio, and newspapers (Rossiter and Danaher, 1998). In its ads, Apple used various media, but as stated earlier it does not choose those of low cost because of its goal to be differentiated among its competitors by its customers. This specifically points out the fact that media have become a very important component of Apple’s creation and development of its brands. The very proof is its decreasing ads’ budget based on its percent revenue over the course of time. From the inception of Apple, its goal is to be known by its potential customers, and this is the reason why it needed to have higher budget for its ads on the media. Apple substantially wanted to develop the relationship between its brands and customers from the start so it was an important move on its part to increase its cost on promotional activities and reduce it later when such goal is achieved. Apple’s success in the market is one of the most interesting points to be critically studied. For many years, the media were not separated from Apple’s success. Through the media, Apple was able to successfully develop its brands. Regarding this, it is now important to explore why Apple is able to successfully influence the world through its brands by the use of the media. In addressing this, there is a need to know the concept of needs in great significant detail. The media and the concept of gratification of needs In a highly globalised economy, cultural dimension needs to be added to the branding strategy (Schroeder and Morling, 2005). However, some managers may not find this particularly useful as they are eventually generally engrossed with the psychoanalytic perspective of addressing customers’ needs in every walk of life. However, at its most complex detail they are just eventually interrelated (Holt, 2004). The modern concept of need can be traced back from the idea of Sigmund Freud that much of the person’s behavior is motivated by the unconscious (Feldman, 2003). According to Freud, the unconscious is composed of the man’s primitive drives in line with hunger, sex, aggression and irrational impulses fueled by psychic energy or “libido”. Marketers later found out that Freud’s idea of these unconscious needs that need to be gratified are essential key points on how to create a need for their product or service offerings. The essential point is how to motivate these unconscious desires and transform them into something that would encourage an individual to go for a certain product or service offerings. From the concept of psychological perspective, the important point is the assumption that humans are motivated by desire (Popkin and Stroll, 1993). Due to this desire, people from all walks of life have various needs that need to be gratified and these involve cognitive, affective, personal integrative, social integrative and tension free (Paolo, 2011). Specifically, these needs are in line with surveillance or information, personal identity, personal relationships or integration and social interaction, and diversion or entertainment (Marris and Thornham, 1996). Behaviorists believe that these needs have to be gratified at some certain point and the ultimate way to address or influence them further is through the aid of the media. This is eventually agreed by Moor because the media are composed of essential spaces that have the potential to allow marketing activities to take place. It is therefore important to understand important theories that linked the media with the gratification of needs. Uses and gratifications theory There are various prevailing issues trying to justify what the media do to people. However, it is significantly the reverse issue discussed under the uses and gratification theory. This theory specifically states that people significantly do something about the media in order to gratify their various desires (Larson, 2009; Asimow and Mader, 2004). This understanding can be potentially illustrated from the perspective of Apple Incorporated and its main point on how to influence its target audience with its offerings. Apple can potentially use various types of media just to promote its products. One important medium that it could potentially tap is the television. In this case, there is now a great connection between Apple’s offerings and the television. Apple tried to use the television as a tool in order to address the management’s desire to increase profitability, productivity and efficiency. In this particular case, to gratify the management desire or needs, the use of a medium to carry a very important message through a clever or impressive commercial ads that could influence the attitudes and behaviors of the target audience. Particularly, Apple could substantially make an impression of its brand through this entire activity. Thus, branding may be significantly emphasised in great detail this way. The above case shows that on the part of Apple Incorporated, the uses and gratification theory could be essentially applied. On the other hand, there are individuals who are looking forward to satisfy their personal integrative needs such as through finding the latest cellular phone models or laptops that are out in the market. This can be addressed through watching latest commercial advertisements on television, leafing through related magazines, and other related media. In doing any of this on the part of the customer, his or her personal integrative need or desire is gratified. This illustration again depicts the importance of how the media can be used by the people in order to gratify specific or personal needs. Magic bullet theory On the other hand, media have substantial things that could be created in order to influence the people. Based on the magic bullet theory, it is stated that communication through the media has a powerful force to influence attitudes and behaviors of a passive audience (Kelly, 1998; Sparks, 2009). Unlike the uses and gratification theory, it is assumed in this theory that an individual has less control over the media and being subdued by them to be influenced in great detail. For example, Apple Incorporated may use television in order to reach out its target audience. On the part of Apple Incorporated this is a way to gratify the management’s desire to promote its latest brand and innovation and to specifically increase its market share. However, on the part of the audience who do not have specific desire for a new smart phone model, watching a commercial advertisements showing the cutting edge technology of latest iPhone models may be influential. Especially if such ad is done with great creativity, addressing the unconscious desire of an individual, a person could be substantially influenced allowing him or her to think of buying a new cellular phone model right at that very moment he or she saw the public notice by Apple Incorporated. As noticed, there is a great contrast between the uses and gratification theory and magic bullet theory, but their uses specifically vary in which perspective one has to try to take a look at it. However, the bottom line of these two theories is on how to eventually gratify the desires of people through the use of the media. Conclusion It is shown that there is a great connection between the media and brand development. It is important to understand that Moor eventually has the point in saying that media eventually allows effective marketing techniques to take place. After all, Apple Incorporated should not put its meaningful efforts on investing time and resources in ads with the media if in its years of business operation they have no significant impacts on its profitability, productivity and efficiency. All of these are tantamount to its competitive advantage. However, it is not just a simple brand development that is involved in this case because there are other important factors that need to be considered and that involved the issue of psychology of needs. Freud’s psychoanalytic understanding of the human needs paved the way for understanding on how to integrate the media and the gratification of human desires. In line with this, theoretical information reveals that a powerful brand just like what Apple Incorporated has fulfilled is made possible through the media. References Arvidson, A. (2006) Brands: Meaning and Value in Media Culture. New York: NY: Routledge. Asimow, M., and Mader, S. (2004) Law and popular culture: a course book. 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(2009) Media Effects Research: A Basic Overview. 3rd ed. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning. Read More