Comprehensive Analysis of Apple's Marketing Strategies and Functions

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Apple's marketing strategies and functions. It begins by outlining the key roles and responsibilities of Apple's marketing department, including brand management, campaign management, content writing, social media management, and media relations. The report then examines the relationship between the marketing department and other departments within Apple, such as research, transportation, quality control, HR, finance, and R&D, highlighting the importance of interdepartmental coordination for achieving competitive success. Furthermore, the report discusses Apple's marketing mix, comparing it with Microsoft's, and presents a marketing plan for Apple. The report emphasizes the significance of understanding modern marketing concepts, the competitive business environment, and the value of customer-centric strategies. The analysis includes Apple's vision and mission statements, illustrating how marketing supports the company's overall objectives and its innovative approach to product development and customer engagement.

Marketing

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK...............................................................................................................................................1
P1. Key roles and responsibilities of the marketing functions of “Apple”............................1
M1...........................................................................................................................................4
P2. Relation of the marketing department with the other department....................................4
M2...........................................................................................................................................7
D1...........................................................................................................................................7
M3...........................................................................................................................................7
P3. Marketing Mix of Apple and Microsoft...........................................................................7
P4. Marketing Plan for Apple...............................................................................................10
M4.........................................................................................................................................13
D2.........................................................................................................................................13
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................13
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................14

INTRODUCTION
Organisations existing in the current market have to face a lot of competition; and they
need to know the essentials of marketing to handle it. Those companies who are offering unique
and creative products & goods brings tough competition in businesses. In recent century new and
evolving technological development such as software, social media, telecom are creating new
paths which leads to growth and driving the market (De Mooij, 2013). Firms have to understand
the power of marketing in the competitive business environment. Promotion, branding,
positioning and targeting customers are the key activities of the marketing. Business-to-
consumer and business-to-business are the two concepts of it (McKenzie-Mohr, 2011). Those
company which will add value for the customers as well as the organisation will be a successful
firm. Through taking the case study of “Apple” modern marketing concepts can be understood in
far more better way.
TASK
P1. Key roles and responsibilities of the marketing functions of “Apple”.
Out of all the organisation existing in the world Apple is considered as the most
innovative and creative technology company of the decade. There had been situation when
people are ready to stand in the long lines in the bitter cold just to buy a phone of Apple. It had
been successful in defeating their rivals like Google, Blackberry and Microsoft. Through the
marketing they create an opinion and brings all things together to develop a complete picture.
They don't take marketing department as the area who controls all its promotional activities but
the whole company with the customers are the marketing department (Czinkota and Ronkainen,
2013). Apple use combination of social, marketing and psychological tactics to build their
promotional campaigns. They make sure that their marketing is based on the intelligence,
innovation and inventiveness.
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Marketing department plays a crucial role in promoting the business and mission of
Apple. By performing marketing activities they reach to their customers, investors, targeted
community and builds a positive image of the brand. Following are the core roles and
responsibilities of the marketing department at Apple:-
Briefing and Managing the Brand: With this they highlights that what is the brand
Apple all about, what they say about themselves and what they will do. They decides that what
experience the customers and the partners of Apple will have (Terpstra, Foley and Sarathy,
2012). It could be said that they shows the relationship between these personnel with Apple.
Managing of the Marketing Campaigns: Marketing department at the Apple looks at
the products made by them and then focus on the sales cycle and then they produces materials
and communications that get the word count.
Producing Marketing and Promotional Materials: They make materials which details
and promote the certain goods or services made by the Apple. Marketing department of Apple
also update the products and services evolved.
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Source 1: How Apple Changed the World – 4 Core Marketing Strategies of
the Tech Icon, 2017.

Content Writing: They have an important role in writing the content for their websites
and for the ads which will be used for the promotion of the products and services. Whatever web
content will be seen on the website will be written by the marketing department only. They also
work on the search engine optimization to ensure that during the search result their content
should open first.
Inspection and managing Social Media: In this era where internet has taken over and
the company like Apple who sets new example every day when it comes to technology. So it is
necessary that they should have presence on social media and because of this they can reach to a
larger number of people in quick time (Hartley and Claycomb, 2013). They have to regularly
engage customers on the social media by regularly posting things on their social media pages.
Internal communications: Employees of the Apple are important resources of their
business. They should be aware about the values, goals and the priorities. It is the marketing
department who make sure that employee communication is practised and this way they can
know what all things are going to happen. They communicate with them through email and
newsletters.
Media Relation: No company can reach to the customer without the use of media. The
spokesperson of Apple comes in front of the media and organise press conferences to answer
there question regarding the company. This way they tell them that all is well in the firm and use
them as a platform to advertise their products and services.
Market Research: Marketing activities cannot be successful without the customer and
market research. With this they get an idea that what are the things which needs to be taken care
while conducting research. Who will be their target groups and what are their demand and needs
from the company. They also analyse their competitor, like what they are offering, what are the
technologies used by them and at what prices they are selling that product (Armstrong and et. al.,
2011). They frame an idea that how the products will be perceived in the market and what
platforms will be suitable for them for advertising and promotional activities.
Looking at Vendors and Agencies: They analysing at the agencies or vendors who will
be creating materials or the marketing support tools. For example; Apple wants to advertise their
next phone so for that they will be contacting to an advertising agency who will analyse their
phone and will design ads according to it. Normally the ad agencies, print vendors, PR agencies
or professionals, web providers and etc. are some of them.
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M1.
It is observed that the competitors are growing from all the direction whether global
competitors eager to grow sales in the new market; like from online competitors seeking cost
efficient ways to expand distribution and etc. Modern marketing has changed a lot and has
become a managerial function, primarily economic, including operations related to research in
the market, estimation of the demands, planning for product, pricing distribution and advertising.
These all are align in a way that maximum output can be gained through it. Their role is to adjust
the prices so that accommodation fluctuations in supply and demand in order to achieve
allocative efficiency. If they will be properly aligning the marketing activities and will set a time
thus giving equal import6ance to each operation which has to be performed. With the time
management strategy they can see benefits in the initial costs.
P2. Relation of the marketing department with the other department.
Apple is an American multinational technology firm who designs, develops and sells
electronic, computer software and online services. It was founded in 1976 and today it has
become the world's most valuable brand in the market. Their product ranges from iPod, iPhone,
iPad, Apple Watch, Macintosh and etc. This company has become the sign of innovation and
design. With its vision and mission statement they maintain their competitive strategy (Murphy,
2010). The vision statement highlights the direction of the company's growth and product
development. At the same time Apple's mission statement briefs about the action needed to
ensure that the organisation continuous their journey in success path.
Vision statement says that they are continuously focusing on bringing innovative
products and by designing simple products they want to make contribution in the market. They
don't want to make lots of products instead they are focusing only on one or two so that they can
have some value in the market.
Mission statement of Apple is changed over the period of time and they design after
analysing the changing business. It states that what it do and what all things it will be going to do
in the future. They designs Macs along with OS X, iLife and etc. Apple leads the digital music
revolution with iPods and iTunes store. They have brought mobile phone in the form of iPhone
and app store which will be the future in this segment (Kotler, 2011).
With the marketing they can increase their sales and attract more number of customers
towards them. The reason behind this is that it gains information about certain process which can
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help them in leading the marketing. Function of the marketing department highlights the
interrelation with other departments of Apple. Different departments are forward in the company
so that they can achieve these mission and vision (Chen, Wang and Wang, 2010). All the
departments have some or other functions to do but they cannot gain competitive advantage till
they don't have a coordination with the marketing area of the company. To promote their
products they use various techniques and creative ideas in order to attain goals and objectives.
Following are some of the factors which are directly linked to the marketing department of
Apple:-
Research: - This is a sector which requires lot of market research to bring a new product.
They look at the trends which are going in the sector and try to build marketing strategies
according to it. They need to evaluate the products sold by the competitors and how they can
beat them.
Transportation: iPhone or other apple products are not made at a single place but they
are assembled in a specific place and after that it comes in the market. For this they have to use
transportation facility to bring the products from different parts or areas (Hoffman and Fodor,
2010). China, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and Singapore are the countries where iPhone's parts
are manufactured. Apple has to use transportation facilities which is reliable and takes less time
to import and export the goods.
Quality of Products: Products of the Apple are known for their quality and is among top
in their segment. It is their product through which they had been successful in gaining success in
less period of time (De Vries, Gensler and Leeflang, 2012). Before introducing the iPhone and
iPads they have to go quality tests and they make sure that customers gets a gadgets which is full
of unique technology.
Out of all the functions performed by the marketing shows that there is relation with the
other departments.
Marketing with HR: This is the department which is present in almost every company.
It provides internal assessment that Apple requires workforce in recent time. The aim of this
department is to built a marketing team which has certain skill and knowledge about the tasks
which is required to be carried out in the organisation (Huotari and Hamari, 2012).
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It also make sure that marketing department has sufficient number of resources available to them
so that they can find it easier to perform their role.
Marketing with Finance: To carry out the marketing functions money is required as
they have to pay to the advertsing agencies and other suppliers who are giving them services. By
analysing the needs they can estimate the financial resources required and according to it they
can allocate budget for them.
Marketing with R&D: All the business of the Apple is dependent upon the Research
and Development department because they are repsonsible for technology updation. Marketing
department gives them information about the customers needs and preferences.
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Source 2: Understanding Apple's Organizational Structure, 2013.

M2.
It is very necessary to have a coordination and relation with other departments existing in
the company because with this they can gain competitive success. The aim of this concept is
bring out the goods and services through keeping customers demand in the priority. It is the
marketing department who make other department aware about the requirements of the
customers from the company. They analyse the marketing trends and inform them about this.
Marketing can assist finance and management department in decision making process. Marketing
can help production department in estimating the number and the type of goods and services
which has to be produced. As almost all the departments at Apple are depeneded on the
marketing for their success so the management needs to ensure that this department is allocated
with more funds as. They can invest more into the research and development department of rthe
marketing.
D1.
Business condition are uncertain and no one can hundred percent estimate them. Firms
have to regularily indulged into market research and know the interest of their potential
customers. Marketing helps almost every department but there might be situation when the
functions of it can mislead them thus brining them in a saturation stage. Other departments
should make sure that they does not rely much on the estimation made by the marketing
department because there are factors which frequently effects the marketing function and has
capability to change the scenraio of the firms. As they know that differenty sirtuations might
arise in the business so they should be ready with a new plan or the crisses plan when the first
one goes wrong.
M3.
Distribution is a crucial part of the markerting because this way they assist companies in
reaching their products to the consumer. They create or build ideas which would make them
reach the product concept to the consumers. They have to choose a distribution platform which is
quick and has large customers attached to it. Organisation have to look the facilities from all the
angles and make marketing plan based on this. Whatever distribution channel they are using
should be suitable to cater a large number of people and can also fulfill the demands of the
people who are interested in it. Distribution channel should be customer friendly and should have
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reach of the customers. They may focus on selling their products through online stores which
will give them more profits.
P3. Marketing Mix of Apple and Microsoft.
Both the companies are competitors of each other and has set the benchmark in the world.
Today, both of them has become of the largest companies with highest brand value (Cranfill,
Inose and Lemay, Apple Inc., 2012). Microsoft is Technology Company who develops,
manufactures, licences, sells software, personal computers and the services. They are known for
their operating system called as “Windows”. Following are the marketing mix of both of them.
Apple:-
Product: They are part of the product development intensive growth strategy and they
are regularly developing the products (Gardner and Kleinerman, Microsoft Corporation, 2012).
They have less number of product because at a time they focus on one.
Place: They uses selective distribution strategy which could limit their market reach.
They authorizes sellers to make sure that they have control over the marketing mix. Following
are the places which are used for the distribution strategy:-
 Telecom companies
 Retailers
Promotions: This includes the promotional and marketing communication mix. This
helps them in reaching their target audience and set the business position. Following are the
marketing mix in this:-
 Advertising
 Personal Selling
 Promotion of the sales
 Public Relations
They advertise on their own websites and the Apple stores. Apple take help of the advertising
agencies to design their ads for the products. They have appointed salesmen and advisors at their
stores who advices the people who are coming to the stores on the products they offer. This way
they convince them to buy the product.
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Price: It shows how the prices will be reflected for the products they sell. They use
premium pricing policy which makes their products expensive (Berthon and et. al., 2012). This
way they have developed an image of the high class brand.
Microsoft:-
Product: They have focused on a single category of products and services for their
expansion. Expansion in the product category is done after a deep research and study of the
upcoming needs of their customers. In starting they have introduced computers but after that
stepped into the operating system market (Grönroos, 2011). They continously brought changes in
their opperating system. From the computer services they also introduced X-BOX series of
gaming consoles (Microsoft Renews Free Xbox 360 with Purchase of Windows PC Deal, 2012).
Most of their products are not hardware but software. Although Apple also sells its OS with the
support of its hardware and not jut on the basis of Sofware. They have the wide variety of
products:-
 Microsoft Windows
 Skype
 Microsoft Office
 Xbox
 Bing
Price: They have variations in their products so their prices are also different. Whatever
services they offer are part of the monopolistic market and majority of the market share is
acquired by them (Michaelidou, Siamagka and Christodoulides, 2011). They set the prices by
taking care of the fact that their brand value is not affected by it and at the same time they also
take care that prices are not overpriced. For their Operating system they have set the premium
prices because it is widely used and popular.
Place: They have set the distribution channels for their various products range they have.
In the case of softwares and OS they give those products to the distributor and further they
distribute to all retailers (Grönroos and Ravald, 2011). They also provide their products to the
laptop and desktop producers and after that those manufactures include OS in their laptop and
other softwares. They give the opportunity to the individuals for downloading their softwares
from the online platforms (Hinz and et. al., 2011). This is the best way for selling their products
as lots of people can be targeted from this and with this profits are also included.
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