Similarities and Differences of Apple and MatsSoft - Essay Example

Apple Vs MatsSoft of the Answer Every company would want to have a brand which is recognizable. The benefits of a recognized brand appear in the form of increased market share, increased sales and most importantly, increased awareness (Binder & Witt, 2011). In this section of the study, the positioning and branding strategies of Apple and MatsSoft will be discussed and analyzed. Apple uses its brand to compete across several sectors of the market place (Holmquist, 2012). The company focuses on offering various kinds of consumer electronic goods. Some of the key products of the company are iPod, iPad, digital music distribution through iTunes and Macintosh line of computers, to name a few. Apple pursues a branding strategy, which mainly focuses on emotions of people. It reflects the lifestyle, liberty, imagination, passion, innovation, dreams, hopes and aspiration (Anonymous, n.d.). Furthermore, personality of the Apple brand, also, reflects simplicity as well as elimination of intricacies from lives of human beings. The company positions itself as a humanistic company, which believes in people-driven product design and maintains a cordial connection with customers. Hence, from an overall viewpoint, the branding and position strategy of Apple reflects a strong importance that the company gives to the needs and aspirations of customers. The web-based solution that manages workflow, acts as a communication tool as well as monitors real time performance from Microsoft is known as Multi Application Tracker System, or commonly known as MatsSoft (Anonymous, 2012). The product is principally aimed at speeding up daily operations of the health care, financial service and public sector. Since the last few years, the company has depended heavily on the referrals. However, the company has recently changed its branding and positioning strategy, where the firm seeks to increase overall sales by targeting new customers through channel partners as well as direct marketing efforts (Kulkarni, 2013). Nonetheless, due to adaptability to a large number of business activities, the company attempted to rebrand it in order to create a single brand identity for itself. As a result of that, the company launched a campaign and “strong blue-and-orange brand identity” was at the core of this campaign. The company positioned itself as a firm, which seeks others’ happiness by reducing complexities of business process. The tagline of the brand, “‘Happiness made easy’, is also consistent along with intentions of the firm. Hence, from the analysis, it is evident that the company is trying to position itself as a “complexity-reducer”. Answer 2) A brand personality is often dubbed as a set of characteristics of a human being, which are accredited to a brand name. In simple words, brand personality is an aspect of a brand with which a consumer can relate. Studies have suggested that effective brand personality has the ability to enhance brand equity by embracing consistent traits. This value addition, in turn, helps the brand to achieve functional benefits (Linder, 2006). Usually, there are five different types of brand personalities, namely sincerity, competence, excitement, ruggedness and sophistication. Apple is a brand that is characterized by innovation and fashion. As mentioned previously, the brand personality of Apple is related to lifestyle, liberty, imagination, passion, innovation, dreams, hopes, aspiration and simplicity. Hence, from the aforementioned types of brand personalities, it is evident that Apple reflects sophistication. On the contrary, MatsSofts tagline, ‘Happiness made easy’, represents that the company seeks to make life of target respondents, stakeholders, customers and staff members easier and positions itself as firm that streamlines business operation. In addition, tagline of the firm, ‘Making your workflow better’, represents the company’s intention to assist consumers in accomplishing complex activities. Hence, from the aforementioned personalities, the one which best suits the company is competence and sincerity. The brand has the competence to ease the work flow and genuineness to assist customers throughout the process. Socio-economic class, gender, age as well as emotional and psychographic characters shape the way an individual behaves. Likewise, brand personality is an indicator of how a brand behaves. Hence, the brand personality represents the brand. The personality of the brand can be represented through gender, age, and several other characteristics. For example, Marlboro is adjudged as masculine, whereas Virginia Slims is dubbed as feminine. In the similar way, IBM is older, whereas Apple is younger. However, a brand can also have different personalities; for example, Mountain Dew can be described as daring and independence. Hence, the statement, “personality represents each brand”, is justified. Answer 3) It is obvious that each brand would want to differentiate themselves from the competitors. As a result, it is observed that companies try positing themselves in different ways, so as to showcase their unique offerings to their customers (Tapscape, 2013). Even so, two different brands often share certain similarities. In this context, it has been observed that Apple and MatsSoft have both similarities as well differences and the same is described below. Similarities of Apple and MatsSoft One of the similarities between the two brands is that both Apple and MatsSoft aim at offering simplicity. In addition, both brands have customer-centric approach i.e. they consider the needs and wants of customers with strong value. Hence, various characteristic similarities are observed among the two brands (Treloar, 1999). Apart from that, similarities are also observed in the form of efforts that the companies make in order to communicate with customers about the brand. For example, both the companies are active in the field of PR activities and social media. Apple and MatsSoft actively use social media platforms, so as to promote their brands. Differences of Apple and MatsSoft The differences in branding efforts of these companies emerge in the form of their positioning strategies. Apple positions itself as a youthful brand, whereas MatsSoft positions itself as a competent and sincere one. In addition to that, the communication method is also different, despite exhibiting same preferences over the communication platforms (Cialdini, 2001). For example, MatsSoft uses bold illustrations and creates stories to communicate with the target customers, whereas Apple focuses more on television advertisements and publicity through PR activities. Answer 4) The above two cases are extremely crucial for a brand manager, as both the articles have provided various useful insights about both brand and positioning strategy of the companies. It has been observed that brand personality is one of the key attributes of a brand. Studies have even suggested that brand personality is how a brand behaves. Hence, brand managers should put in more efforts to develop the personality of a brand. Apart from the importance of brand characteristics, the articles have also enabled me to learn the various techniques and platforms, which are used to promote a brand (Casadesus-Masanell & Ricart, 2010). However, most important findings from the study were that brand personality has the ability to enhance brand equity by embracing consistent traits. The enhanced brand equity and effective brand personality in turn helps a company to enhance visibility in the market place, experience increased market share and also, sales. In simple words, the importance of branding efforts in marketing activities of the firm has been clearly described in both the articles. Furthermore, it has also been learned that branding helps in establishing a permanent identity for the firm and at the same time, the impact of competition reduces greatly. References Anonymous. (n.d). Apples Branding Strategy. marketingminds.com.au. Retrieved from http://www.marketingminds.com.au/branding/apple_branding_strategy.html. Anonymous. (2012). CASE STUDY: MatsSoft overcame rebrand challenges to strengthen sales to new clients. b2bmarketing.net. Retrieved from http://www.b2bmarketing.net/knowledgebank/demand-generation/case-studies/case-study-matssoft-overcame-rebrand-challenges-strengt. Binder, M. & Witt, U. (2011). As Innovations Drive Economic Growth, Do They also Raise Well-Being? Retrieved from https://papers.econ.mpg.de/evo/discussionpapers/2011-05.pdf. Casadesus-Masanell, R. & Ricart, J. (2010). From strategy to business models and onto tactics. Long Range Planning, 43 (2/3), 195-215. Cialdini, R. B. (2001). Harnessing the science of persuasion. Harvard Business Review, Oct, 72-79. Holmquist, L. E. (2012). Grounded Innovation: Strategies for Creating Digital Products. Massachusetts: Elsevier. Kulkarni, V. A. (2013). Samsung and other players have grabbed chunks of Apples market share in the last year. Retrieved from http://www.knowyourmobile.in/samsung/8090/apple-no-longer-invincible-premium-smartphone-marketplace. Linder, J. C. (2006). Does innovation drive profitable growth? New metrics for a complete picture. Journal of Business Strategy, 27 (5), 38 – 44. Tapscape. (2013). Apples stock drop shows lack of pure innovation. Retrieved from http://www.tapscape.com/apples-stock-drop-shows-lack-of-pure-innovation/. Treloar, A. (1999). Products and Processes: How Innovation and Product Life-Cycles can help Predict the Future of the Electronic Scholarly Journal. Retrieved from http://www.bth.se/elpub99/ap.nsf/08c6c2f88424ad99c12566ff002a0c10/d8acd24bab1f7220c12566ff0034fd67/$FILE/250-260.pdf . Read More