Brand Management of Apple Inc.: A Comprehensive Analysis

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Brand Management

Contents
TABLE OF FIGURES.................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION.........................................................................................................3
TASK 1 MANAGING AND BUILDING BRAND OVER TIME.....................................4
ARTICLE: BRAND IS POWER...............................................................................4
TASK 2 BRAND HIERARCHY AND PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT.........................1
1. ANALYSE THE BRAND PORTFOLIO STRATEGY.....................................1
2. ILLUSTRATION OF THE HIERARCHY MANAGEMENT OF BRANDS
WITHIN ORGANISATIONS PORTFOLIO...............................................................3
3. ANALYSE STRATEGIES USED FOR MANAGING THE EQUITY OF THE
BRANDS WITHIN THE ORGANISATIONS PORTFOLIO......................................5
TASK 3....................................................................................................................... 7
1. STRENGTHS OF THE BRAND THAT CAN BE LEVERAGED....................7
2. WEAKNESSES THAT MAY NEED ATTENTION PROVIDING SOME
POSSIBLE SUGGESTIONS...................................................................................9
3. COLLABORATIVE AND PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENTS..............................11
TASK 4 MEASURING AND MANAGING THE BRAND VALUE..............................14
Brand Value..........................................................................................................14
BRAND AWARENESS.........................................................................................15
MARKET SHARE..................................................................................................18
CONSUMER ATTITUDE AND THE PURCHASING INTENT...............................18
CONCLUSION..........................................................................................................19
REFERENCES..........................................................................................................20

TABLE OF FIGURES
Figure 1 Apple Inc.......................................................................................................2
Figure 2 Branding........................................................................................................3
Figure 3 eBay..............................................................................................................2
Figure 4 Brand reinforcement..................................................................................... 3
Figure 5 Product Portfolio........................................................................................... 1
Figure 6 Brand Architect............................................................................................. 3
Figure 7 Brand portfolio of Apple................................................................................ 4
Figure 8 Apple Brand personality................................................................................6
Figure 9 Vision statement of Apple.............................................................................8
Figure 10 Apple and Accenture collaboration...........................................................11
Figure 11 Apple and Cisco collaboration...................................................................11
Figure 12 Apple and Salesforce................................................................................12
Figure 13 Apple and SAP..........................................................................................13
Figure 14 Direct traffic...............................................................................................15
Figure 15 Earned Media example of Patagonia........................................................16
Figure 16 Track Maven Example..............................................................................16
Figure 17 Example of blog share..............................................................................17
Figure 18 Theory of planned behaviour....................................................................19

INTRODUCTION
As stated in the book by Kelvin Lane, the first step of the brand management
process in the strategic manner is identifying and creating the position of the brand.
The effect of the positioning in on a founding benchmark which further works towards
building a strong brand by proving the support to the marketers for designing,
implementing, sustaining and solidifying the associations of brands. In this project,
an article is been prepared on the topic brand is power. Then the brand portfolio and
the hierarchy management analysis is done for the Apple Inc. In the later part of the
assignment brand extension and leverage is been analyses in relation to the Apple
Inc.
Figure 1 Apple Inc.
Source: [Apple Inc. 2019]

TASK 1 MANAGING AND BUILDING BRAND OVER
TIME
ARTICLE: BRAND IS POWER
Introduction
A brand is considered as one of the
most valuable asset for the company
as it is like the face of the company
and it can be anything a discernible
logo, company’s or product’s slogan or
the mark that associates the product or
the company with the public. And even
once the brand is developed, it
happens that the company s
recognised by its brand only and
eventually they become same
(Alhaddad, 2015).
Figure 2 Branding
Source: [Alhaddad, 2015]
Now here comes another term, brand
equity, which refers to the value
brought up by the brand for the
company. It is measurable and can be
measured in numerous ways like price
premium charged over the period of
time, or the long term customer loyalty.
The way to strengthen the perception
of the customer regarding our brand is
to apply the customer based brand
equity model, which is created by
Kevin Lane Keller, an author of the
book strategic brand management.
One of the most significant facets of
the overall business strategy is the
brand building process because the
successful brand building process
helps the brand to get an edge over
and outshine the competitors. The
brand building process helps in the
establishing the brand loyalty among
the customers and also helps in the
accomplishment of the sales
objectives along with high profit levels
(Alhaddad, 2015). Therefore the steps
of building the brand is as follows:
Define the target audience

It gets very important for the brand to
figure out and define the target
audience for selling their products and
services so as to know their needs and
requirements. Then the nature of the
product will be tweaked accordingly
(Alhaddad, 2015).
Define brand mission
In the second step the mission
statement of the brand is created
which will further act as guide for the
further process of brand building
across various channels.
Research competition
In this step the competitors are
thoroughly studied and their offerings
to the customers are analysed. This
will help you to find put the difference
between and the competitors (Barreda
et al., 2015).
Create value propositions
Always focus on your brand USP
because this is the main differentiating
point of your from the customers.
Determine brand guidelines
The guidelines defied by the brand
represents the tonality of the brand
and also helps in setting the specific
rules on the interaction of the business
with the audience (Barreda et al.,
2015).
Market you brand
The last step is to define the proper
marketing strategy for your brand and
branding should be applied in every
possible items be it packaging, modes
of communication, stationary, collateral
market or the websites. In short make
your brand appearance in the every
possible way.
Main body
SUCCESSFUL STRATEGY FOR
STRENGTHEN BRAND EQUITY,
BRAND EXTENSION, REINFORCING
AND REVITALISING BRANDS OR
OVERCOMING A BRAND CRISIS
In 2002, a money transfer service
which was established 4 years back,
PayPal, was acquired by eBay for just
1.5 billion dollar. eBay acquired the
deal because the concept was
innovative with the great future scope
because it was the start of the digital
revolution, and the price paid was
worth it (Barreda et al., 2015). Here
the brand value is talked about, i.e. the
brand value of the PayPal should have
easily hiked into a ten figure price.
Fast forwarding the situation, i.e. 18
years later, PayPal current brand value

is 75.54 billion dollar. This is not only
the result of the development and the
investments, but also the strengthened
brand equity, which is also referred as
the commercial values for the product
or services on the basis of the
customer perception (Barreda et al.,
2015).
Figure 3 eBay
Source: [eBay, 2019]
SUCCESSFUL STRATEGY FOR
STRENGTHENING THE BRAND
Quality never goes out of style
Most important strategy is having the
quality product and services, and
without this factor every strategy and
results goes in vain because in today’s
time the competition is increasing
immensely and customer have lot any
options to deal with. So if the promises
made to the customers are not
completed, they will switch to the other
brands (Becerril-Arreola et al., 2017).
Loyal to the core
A sure fire way of fortifying the brand
equity is building the customer loyalty.
There are lot many ways to recruit the
loyal customer’s army but the
important part is to learn from the best.
Best suited example is Apple, which is
the on top when it comes to the
customer loyalty and can be seen at
the time of the launch of the new
iPhone, there is long line of the
diehard fans of Apple outside the
companies shop.
Consistency is the key to success
It’s essential to work on the hike of the
brand equity from all the possible
angles as the brand equity is the
intangible concept (Becerril-Arreola et
al., 2017). Therefore creating the
brand image consistent in nature, and
also communicating the same
message of the consistent brand
image, showing your customers how
much dedicated and serious you are
regarding the delivery of the promised
products or services (Becerril-Arreola
et al., 2017).
BRAND REINFORCEMENT
Brand reinforcement mainly focuses
on the maintenance of the brand
equity by employing the tactics for
keeping the brand alive in both the

customers i.e. new and existing. This
can be possible by conveying the
consistent message to the customers
regarding the brand image and
awareness (Becerril-Arreola et al.,
2017).
Figure 4 Brand reinforcement
Source: [Becerril-Arreola et al., 2017]
BRAND REVITALIZATION
Brand revitalization is the strategy
opted for marketing when the product
is reaching at the maturity stage of the
product life cycle or when the profits
are drastically decreasing. This
strategy is adopted to either bring the
product back in the market or to
secure the sources of customers or
equity (Bucic and Singh, 2018).
Example, a Pepsi product was
launched with the tagline Yahoo
Mountain Dew, which helped in
flourishing the market but sales
dropped drastically. So in order to
improve the sales, mountain dew
repositioned itself along with the
change in the tagline that was Do the
Dew.
CONCLUSION
Branding can be referred as the
marketing tool which helps in
marketing the products along with the
help in the identification and
distinguishing the product (Bucic and
Singh, 2018). One of the important
part of the every business strategy is
the brand building process which helps
in getting the edge over the
competitors and be a step ahead of
them. Therefore it is viable to say that
branding is one of the best marketing
tool which helps in the creation of the
brand awareness resulting in the
increase in the sales and the
profitability for the company (Bucic and
Singh, 2018).

TASK 2 BRAND HIERARCHY AND PORTFOLIO
MANAGEMENT
1. ANALYSE THE BRAND PORTFOLIO STRATEGY
Apple is one of the most valuable companies in the world, but when we look back at
around 1997, the story as a lot different. The company was in the severe poor
condition, and the scene was it was losing tens of millions of dollar in every quarter
(Chiu et al., 2017). Therefore Steve Jobs cancelled 70% of the products of Apple,
and fired around 3000 people, and next year he turned the loss into the profit. He
then came up new products like iMac, iPod, iPhones, iTunes etc.
This readjustment of the products in the company’s portfolio is quite common, and in
Apple too, the poor performing products and services were dismissed, in order to
make the space for the new products that are profitable in nature (Chiu et al., 2017).
As a trader, in a sense, Apple used trading ideas converted into trading strategies.
These strategies helped in the formation of the portfolio, just like the companies who
works with the portfolio of the products.
Figure 5 Product Portfolio
Source: [Apple Inc., 2019]
BRANDED HOUSE
In the branded house strategy, the firm is considered as the brand itself. Sub-brand
is not detracting from the main brands, which helps in building the strong brands,
which is both memorable and recognizable (Chiu et al., 2017). Apple has several

products but it never differentiates its products from the main or the mater brand. As
it is evident that the apple’s logo is present on the back of all the Apple’s products.

2. ILLUSTRATION OF THE HIERARCHY MANAGEMENT OF
BRANDS WITHIN ORGANISATIONS PORTFOLIO
The organisational structure is usually described as the hierarchical, and in Apple it
is done as per the product based grouping. Initially the structure was developed by
the founder and the CEO of Apple, Late Steve Jobs, with the idea to ensure the
focussed realization of the innovative ideas along with the clear vision and mission
for the Apple (Claiborne and Sirgy, 2015). Apple hierarchical structure is been
subjected for the modifications after the leadership was shifted to Tim Cook, who
focussed on converting the process into the decentralised mechanism to a certain
extent which was done for encouraging the innovation along with the creativity at
various organisational levels. Although the structure remained largely hierarchical
(Claiborne and Sirgy, 2015).
One of the Apple’s important feature is the product based grouping. The products
specified in the Apple Portfolio is the result of the collaboration of the product based
grouping such as iPad, iPhone, Apple TV, iWatches etc. The advantage of the
hierarchical organisational structure results in the tight control of the higher
authorities and the senior managerial persons over all the business aspects of the
organisation (Eisingerich et al., 2016).
Figure 6 Brand Architect
Source: [Eisingerich et al., 2016]

From a viewpoint of the brand architecture, monolithic or the master brand identity is
been followed in Apple. Linchpin brand is the one which directly influences the
leveraging point of the company or even the company’s future. For Apple, iPhone is
the Linchpin brand (Eisingerich et al., 2016). Then comes brand energizers, which
consist of the products or services that energizes the brand and in case of Apple it is
iTunes. Then the category which appears is the Silver Bullet Brand, which consists
of the products that helps in supporting the image of the brand and iPod is the silver
bullet in the Apple (Elliott et al., 2015). The next one is the cash cow brand which
consists of the products in the portfolio which do not require much investment as
compared to other brands for example MacBook.
Figure 7 Brand portfolio of Apple
Source: [Elliott et al., 2015]