Brand Management Strategies of Apple Inc. (MKTG301)

Desklib provides past papers and solved assignments for students. This report analyzes Apple's brand management strategies.

BRAND MANAGEMENT
APPLE

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................2
TASK1 MANAGING AND BUILDING THE BRAND OVERTIME..........................................3
INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..............................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION............................................................................................................................6
TASK2 HIERARCHY MANAGEMENT AND BRAND PORTFOLIO.......................................7
TASK3 BRAND EXTENSION AND LEVERAGE.....................................................................12
TASK4 MANAGING AND MEASURING BRAND VALUES.................................................15
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................17
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................18
1

INTRODUCTION
According to Kotler and Pfoertsch (2010), a brand is a name, image, symbol or an identity that
represents the company and the brand is the main concern in consumer marketing and the
management of the company prepared with the strategic approach to defeat the competitors is
called as the brand management. The brand equity is the concept that defines the relationship
between the brands and the consumers which helps to produce brand recognition at the
marketplaces (Keller et al., 2011).
The brand equity of Apple is related to the brand concept and value added to any organisations.
The concept has multiple meaning in different fields like marketing, accounting, etc. and it is a
consumer-oriented concept in the context of the Apple which will be discussed in detail. This
report consists the concept of the brand is power and the description of the brand and its strength
or value to meet the consumer needs or desires. The brand portfolio strategy and management
and brand leverage of the Apple with the strength, weaknesses and evaluation of the techniques
for managing and measuring the brand value will be discussed in detail.
2

TASK 1 MANAGING AND BUILDING THE BRAND OVERTIME
“BRAND IS POWER”
INTRODUCTION
BRAND
The marketers use differently the concept of brand and brand equity with the meaning of
something that results to the owner of the brand (Brexendorf et al., 2015). The brand equity as the
total brand value like an asset when it present on the balance sheet and a concept of measuring the
consumers' loyalty or attachment to the brand that is important to know by the organisation. The
brand strength and loyalty are a different concept and interrelated to the brand equity.
The branding act as a tool that helps the organisation to conduct marketing or advertising to
implement an identity or the symbol from which the product can be recognized by the customers
(Campelo, 2017). The branding can also encourage the cross purchasing and redundant
purchasing. The brand loyalty ensures to make the competition easy. The consumers get the
benefit of branding as it saving their time in identifying the products.
SUPPORTIVE TOOLS IN THE BRAND ESSENCE
Brand Equity
Brand equity can be defined as developing the value from the product identification with the
recognition of the name in the competitive market where the equivalent product existed (Davcik
and Sharma, 2015). The organisations can create or develop the brand equity for their products for
easy recognition, reliability and memorable in the mind of the customers. The organisations can
also conduct the marketing campaigns for creating and increasing the brand equity.
Stages of Building a Successful Brand
Brand equity can be developed by shaping the customers thinking and feeling that is related to the
products so that the customers get the experiences and react positively with the right perception,
trust and beliefs about the product. The theory also defines the several stages that can be followed
by the organisation to achieve brand equity. This theory includes four stages that should be
followed to build successful brand equity:
3

Keller’s Brand Equity Theory
Figure 1: Keller's Brand Equity Pyramid
Source: Jonathan Knowles [2019]
The brand salience is the first stage and at this stage, the organisations build the identity of the
brand and create brand awareness among the customers. At this stage, the parameters represented
which helps to build the excellent identity and image of the brand. The second stage of the model
includes the brand establishment at the marketplace and in the minds of the customers. The third
stage consists of the response of the customers towards the brand which represents the
observations and evaluations of the brand and which is based on the bundle of brands associations.
The last stage includes the brand relationships from which the brand can be converted into the
creation (Keller, 2014).
ROLE OF MARKETING IN ESTABLISHING BRAND EQUITY
The activities of the marketing department in the organisation influence the brand equity steps in a
different direction. The main activities of the marketing focused on the development and
establishment of the image of the brand and advertising also has a vital role in the same. Marketing
department communicates and floats the functional abilities for the brand. The marketing also has
the importance in the development of the brand equity and brand image (Campelo, 2017).
4

MAIN BODY
The main body includes the strategy that is helpful to strengthen the brand equity and brand
extension and how the organizations make strategies to reinforcing and revitalizing the brand.
They are described as follows:
SUCCESSFUL STRATEGY FOR STRENGTHENING BRAND EQUITY AND BRAND
EXTENSION
As the manager in the marketing department, this is important to make the strategy for the
brochure of the organisation. There are different strategies to strengthen brand equity which can be
adapted for optimum utilization (Huang and Sarigöllü, 2014). The quality services or products are
the strong base for the brand to provide the premium quality products to the customers so that it
will increase the repurchase.
Competitive analysis
The strong brand is that can survive in the market fluctuations so that the company should analyse
the market trends and the activities and strategies of the competitors. The company must build an
effective strategy to establish the brand extension and equity and to meet the needs of the
customers that are unfulfilled from other brands (Ferguson, et al., 2016).
Consistent brand image
This is an effective strategy to handle, develop and implement the business models as according to
the market situations and the strong strategy (Davcik and Sharma, 2015). Therefore, the company
must engage with the customers to build the pace of the communication.
Listen to customers
The company has the strategy to listen to their customers but must give them solutions for
complaint, appreciation and feedback as fast as possible to engage them with the brand. The
company must communicate the proper information to the customers and resolve the feedback
issues (Chiu et al., 2017).
REINFORCEMENT AND REVITALIZING BRAND
The company can be reinforced the brand and revitalizing it with the help of optimum utilization
5

of the resources as to overcome the issues related to the brand. There are some steps that must be
followed by Apple and they are as follows:
 The brand is the asset for the company so it must be recognized and treated in an efficient
manner so that it creates the value for the company (Grant, 2016)
 The consistency should be managed to meet customer’s expectations and requirements
from the brand
 Apple understands the parameters of experience of the customers so that it must trigger the
touch-points of the brand that reinforce the brand (Brexendorf, et al., 2015)
 The company must improve or increase the abilities of their distribution as it opened the
retail stores around the world with quality services and products
 The company can implement the strategies to increase the accessibility of iPods by
contacting with the resellers (Guo, et al., 2018)
 Apple must provide the experts in the technology at the retail stores to solve the problems
and queries of the customers
CONCLUSION
It can be concluded that the branding is an important tool that increases the market of the product
or services and to distinction and identification of the product. The brand is an asset to the
company and works as a path or way to provide the direction in the development and
implementation of the marketing strategic plan to understand the objectives of Apple. This also
helps the company to implement the marketing plan in the appropriate alignment to meet the needs
of the company. Hence, branding is an effective tool of marketing that ultimately increases brand
recognition and awareness and also the sales of the products offered by the company.
TASK 2 HIERARCHY MANAGEMENT AND BRAND PORTFOLIO
ANALYSING THE BRAND PORTFOLIO STRATEGY OF APPLE
Brand portfolio management embraces all the brands that are offered by the organisation for sale
to meet the needs of different customers (Rahman and Lambkin, 2016). In other words, the brand
portfolio refers to a roof under which the different brand lines of the organisation to serve the
targeted market segments.
6

BRAND PORTFOLIO STRATEGIES OF APPLE
Apple offers the quality products and consists several technological brands with a strong pricing
strategy. The company has successful brands and MacBook, iPod and iPhone are successful in
the market. The main focus of the company on the innovation and new technology and the
design in the limited period of time through introduce them in the market to make up the market.
The brand portfolio covers the different brands by the parent company and the strategies are
planned to manage the brand portfolio. For managing the brand portfolio in Apple so there are
the following two strategies must be followed:
1. Depth of Branding
The strategy includes the nature and number of brands that are related to the products category.
The stock keeping units, models and many lines are also linked with the category of product.
2. The breadth of Product Mix
In this strategy, the product lines in the company of different product categories and is linked to
the nature and number of inclusive brands of the company (Kapferer, et al., 2012).
There are several models of the brand portfolio which consist house of brands, branded house
and house blend and these support the brand of the company.
The branded house refers to use the single popular brand and includes the multiple categories of
the products. It is usually focused on a brand to increase the scale. Apple falls and applies this
model of the brand portfolio (Apple and Business, 2019).
In the house of brands, the disconnected brands are included and this is a most powerful model
for the brand portfolio and it refers as the company involves or has the ownership of these
different brands around the world. The example of this model is Unilever which consist the
variety or category of different brands too like the dove, Knorr and lux, etc.
The house blend has the credibility of the parent brand of the company and it builds the other
strong brands under the brand. The suitable example of this model is Google like it introduced
7

the search engine and now offering other products such as calendar, Google maps, Gmail, etc.
and many acquisitions have been done by the company like Picasa and YouTube.
HIERARCHY MANAGEMENT OF BRANDS
The management hierarchy of the brand in the Apple is that this works as an umbrella or strategy
of family branding because the company uses the brand name as the strong recognition of logo of
Apple. This helps to aware the customers with strong brand recognition among the customers to
identify the products offered by the company. The family branding includes the computers,
phone, accessories, laptops, etc. to keep marketing of these products which supports the
company to decrease or save the costs involved in implementing new brand name and the logo
(Brexendorf et al., 2015).
The management hierarchy of Apple is maintaining the identity of the successful brand when
investment made in iPod, accessories, iPhone, etc. with the view of association with the logo of
the company. The current products which are the lineup of the company and come under the
family branding to introduce the products like iCloud, iPhone, iPod, etc. the company also
established in the new business through introduced watch and Apple pay by marketing
investments. The name and logo of Apple describe the functions of the products offers by the
company and customers recognize the products by the logo of Apple.
Apple Brand Halo Effect
The products of the company like iPhone, iPod and music products have a profitable business in
the market. The company uses the strategy to reinforce and the personality of the brand and that
helps to increase the business of the company. During the success of these products and create
the awareness of the brand image for the customers to reach the target market was relatively
high.
In the Apple halo effect, the company appealed the success of the iPods in the new market
segment for attracting the customers and these segments to be attracted towards the computers
introduced by the company (Rosenzweig, 2014).
The hierarchy of brand describes four levels that can be included the independent brands, family
brands and corporate brands. The brand architecture includes the unity among the corporate and
product brand.
8

Figure 2: Brand Pyramid
Source: Patrick Mork [2019]
Dull (2011) stated that the brand pyramid includes five levels in the vertical form as starting
from the surface to top. At the first level, the attribute that has the purpose of product structure or
design along with its features. The second functional attribute describes the benefits which
convey the clarity and the solutions for the issues of the customers that will be solved by the
product. The next attribute defines the feeling and loyalty of the customer towards the product.
The fourth attribute includes brand recognition. The last attribute defines the brand essence for
handling and managing the situation.
ANALYSING STRATEGIES THAT USED FOR MANAGING THE BRAND EQUITY
WITHIN THE APPLE’S PORTFOLIO
Brand equity refers to the combination of all the assets of the company and is connected with the
company or brand of the company. It laid down the quality, awareness and loyalty of the brand.
The main trouble of the renders of the brand is to the improvement of the brand equity in the
company and it might be carried out in several ways.
9

Apple has a different and positive working culture that is helpful for the company in
implementing or creating the strong brand image in the industry and to follow this strategy the
company is able to attract the youngsters and productive people across the world (Rahman and
Lambkin, 2016). The work environment of the company is also strong as the innovation and new
ideas with the technology adopted by the company for developing the recognition through the
company logo.
The company also attends the customer’s queries or other threats and trying to satisfy the
customers by providing the solutions to them. The brand offerings can help the company
sometimes to overcome the threats. Apple provides the attention towards the strategies in
implementing a strong brand image for the customers and in the industry. These strategies are
also adopted and used by the company to manage the brand equity for the portfolio of the
company. The company defines the strategies on the basis of an advantage of the competition
and the measurement of the brand equity includes the local market and customer wants.
10

TASK 3 BRAND EXTENSION AND LEVERAGE
Analysing the strength and weaknesses of the brand which will be helpful in the leveraging of
the brand and on the basis of this the organization can implement the improvements that are
needed. The brand leveraging and its strengths and weaknesses are given below:
BRAND LEVERAGING
The brand leveraging is to use the current brand name of the organisations which helps in
entering into the new market but related to the category of the product and works as a strategy
for the company. It provides the exact and correct information about the products to the
customers and also about the introduction of the new offerings by the company (Booth and
Matic, 2011). It also helps the customers in buying those products that are newly introduced in
the market of the same brand and for this the customers possessing the particular level of
knowledge about the brand equity.
STRENGTHS OF BRAND LEVERAGING
The significance of the brand leveraging is in the introduction and creation of the new services or
products because it gives the customers the familiarity with the effective attitude and brand
characteristics in the new product category. It creates the awareness of the brand and through
this, it can help the consistent recognition of the brand name. The cost involved in the
implementation of the new product in the brand leveraged is less than the cost involved in the
implementation of the new product with a small investment in the creating of the brand (Keller et
al., 2011). The advertising cost can also save as the high brand awareness among the customers
is already done by the company.
Brand Extension
The brand extension refers to the act in the launching of the new product in the different category
with the use of leveraging by the company. The strategy for the brand extension will be helpful
in increasing the market share of the company’s new product (Chiu et al., 2017). It includes or
takes advantage of the existed brand name to introduce the new product in the marketplace. For
example, Apple has been started with the Apple I computers in the market and then extended the
company from the introduction of iPhone, smartwatches, etc. Brand extension helps to increase
the image of the brand among the customers and decrease the risk. The strong brand image
11