Analysis of Apple's Marketing Strategies and Stakeholder Engagement

This report provides a detailed analysis of Apple's marketing strategies. It begins with an overview of marketing processes, the marketing mix (4Ps), and how Apple creates value for its customers. The report then delves into Porter's Five Forces and SWOT analyses to understand Apple's competitive environment and internal strengths and weaknesses. It also explores Apple's segmentation, targeting, and positioning (STP) strategies. Furthermore, the report examines stakeholder engagement, including internal and external stakeholders, and how Apple communicates with them. It also reflects on the communication tools used by Apple, including the interactional communication model and integrated marketing communication (IMC). The report also examines how Apple utilizes the Ansoff Matrix strategy for product development and diversification.

ASSESSMENT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
TASK 1A.........................................................................................................................................1
Processes and stages of Marketing and role of marketing mix...................................................1
Role of marketing in creating values for customers....................................................................3
Stakeholder Engagement and their impact upon marketing activities of an organization...........4
TASK 1B.........................................................................................................................................5
Reflection on communication tool used by Apple......................................................................5
REREFENCES................................................................................................................................8

TASK 1A
Processes and stages of Marketing and role of marketing mix
Marketing can be defined as a way through which business promote or sell their products
or services with the help of market research and advertising (Singh, 2019). Marketing also helps
organizations to maintain relationship between organizations and customers.
Mission statement of Apple:
The main Mission Statement of Apple is to bring best user experience to their customers
by focusing on bringing innovation within hardware, software and rest all of the other services of
the organization.
Objectives:
Main objectives of Apple are-
 To enhance overall sales Apple products by At least 10 percent.
 To increase overall customer base at 20 percent within a Year.
Porter’s five force Analysis
Porters five force model helps in analysing forces that shape an industry and also helps
them to determine their strengths and weakens (D O'Rourke, 2018). One of the main advantages
of this model is that it helps organizations to analyse their current competition within the market.
But it has one disadvantage as will i.e. it assumes a perfect classic market.
 Competitive rivalry or competition: Threat of this force is high because companies like
Samsung, LG are aggressively competitive with Apple and in order to gain competitive
advantage they are focusing on bringing innovation within their products and services and as
a result differentiation within their products has also reduced.
 Bargaining power of buyers or customers: Threat of this force is also high because switching
cost from one product to other is low because of which switching cost for buyers or
customers also decreases.
 Bargaining power of suppliers: Threat of this force is low because there are various number
of suppliers present who will readily supply material to a global brand like Apple because of
which threat of this force decreases (Hao and et. al., 2018).
 Threat of substitutes or substitution: Threat of this force is also low because Apple is one of
those organizations that provides higher quality products and services to their customers
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which helps them to maintain their brand reputation. This reduces chances of customers to
switch from their products or services to other.
 Threat of new entrants or new entry: Threat of this force is moderate because of various
factors. First of all, in order to enter into this market high capital investment is required and
new entrant also need to invest huge amount in brand development but if the new entrant has
the potential and capacity to capture the market by providing unique features and quality to
the customers. So, all the three factors make threat of this force moderate.
SWOT Analysis
SWOT analysis is a micro environment analysis model which helps organizations to
analyse their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (Kodama, 2018). The main
advantage of SWOT analysis is that it helps in addressing main issues faced by the business as
well as also helps them to get to know their strengths. But it has some disadvantages as well such
as: it lacks hierarchy that leads to problem.
Strengths
It is one of the most valued technology
organization that provides variety of
technological products and services with
excellent quality to their customers. they also
provide most innovative products to their
customers in order to fulfil their needs.
Weaknesses
One of their major weakness is that it provides
high cost products and services to their
customers. Another weakness of Apple is that
its products are incompatible with other
software.
Opportunities
They can expand their distribution network in
order to generate higher sales and revenue.
They can also focus on adopting green
technology.
Threats
Coronavirus Outbreak from china is one of the
main threat for them as they are highly
dependent upon china for manufacturing of
their products (Peng, 2018).
STP
Segmentation: Apple focuses on demographic segmentation. They focus on all the customers of
age group between 18-40 years of age as these age group people are the one that like usage of
technology.
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Targeting: Apple has three target groups: one that loves music and target them with the help of
iTunes and iPods. Second group are professionals and target them with the help of products like
MacBook, iPhones etc. Last, group is crowd that likes to use Apple products like TV, iWatch,
iBook’s and many more. For this they target teenagers, businessman, students and adults (Chen
and Ann, 2016).
Positioning: Being world’s number one brand they have topmost mind positioning. They
position by product characteristics, positioning of users or applications, positioning by product
class and positioning by competitors.
Marketing Mix (4P’s)
Marketing mix is a tool that helps in understanding what products and services can offer
and how it can become successful. 4P’s of marketing mix are: Price, Product, Promotion, and
Place.
Product: Apple has large variety of products as per the needs and requirements of their
customers. All the products of Apple are divided on the basis of their customers utilizations like
iPhone, iPad, Apple TV and many more.
Price: Apple uses premium pricing strategy for sales of their products and services. Apple
provides various kinds of exclusive services or features with excellent quality that are present
within Apple products only because of which they charge premium price from their customers.
Place: Places that are involved in distribution strategy are: Apple Store location, authorized
sellers, telecommunication companies and Company-owned website and online stores for
desktop and mobile (Tansim, 2018) .
Promotion: Apple uses various promotional tactics in order to promote their products and
services such as advertising, sales promotion, personal selling and public relation.
Role of marketing in creating values for customers
Marketing concept and ways in which Apple practise this concept
Marketing concept is a kind of philosophy that should be analysed by organizations in
order to fulfil needs and requirements of their customers and take appropriate decisions
accordingly better than competitors. Marketing concept of Apple is based upon simplicity. Apple
mostly position and market their products in a much simpler manner. Most of the marketing done
by organization is free from things such as: pricing, feature list, expensive special effects etc.
Branding, advantages of Branding and branding strategy used by Apple
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Branding can be defined as a kind of marketing practise which is used by organizations to
create their organization’s name, design and logo so that they can build an identity of their own
and differentiate their products from other organization’s products (Wang, 2020). It is slowly
becoming one of the main factors which is helping organizations to gain competitive advantage.
There are various kinds of advantages that branding provides to organizations such as:
Branding helps an organization to stand out in a crowded saturated market. It provides credibility
to the organizations. It also helps companies to increase brand loyalty within their customers.
Branding strategy of Apple focuses on emotions. It focuses on way in which experience
of Apple products can enhance their customer’s experience. They also focus on branding
personality that focuses on lifestyle, imagination, liberty regained, innovation, passion and
enhance power of people through personality. With the help of brand personality Apple helps
their customers to enhance their lifestyle as well as enhance their overall customer experience.
Ways in which Ansoff matrix Strategy can be used by organization to create values such as
product development and diversification
Ansoff matrix Strategy helps in illustrating four strategic options: market penetration,
product development, market development and diversification. Apple uses all the four strategies
in an integrated manner.
 Market penetration: Apple has divided their global operation within five markets. Apple
involve in this strategy with high level of efficiency in order to sell their existing products
within existing market (Short, 2018).
 Product development: Apple uses this strategy to sell their newly introduced products within
their existing market in order to increase sales of newly introduced products.
 Market development: Apple uses this strategy in order to enter into a new market with its
existing products.
 Diversification: Till not Apple is not famous for engaging into this strategy but due to
increasing popularity and success of iPhone they are thinking of engaging within this
strategy.
Stakeholder Engagement and their impact upon marketing activities of an organization
Stakeholder can be defined as a party that has an interest within an organization and can either
affect their business or can get impacted by an organizations actions, objectives and policies.
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Internal Stakeholders: They are the entities within an organization and are involves within
internal operations or activities of business. Internal stakeholders of Apple are employees,
managers, the board of directors, investors and many more (Pissonnier and et. al., 2016).
External Stakeholders: They are the entities within an organization who does not involve
themselves within a business itself but they are the one who care about or get affected by its
performance. Main external investors of Apple are: consumers, regulators, investors, suppliers,
creditors, shareholders and many more.
Ways in which Apple Communicate with all of their stakeholders and ways in which
stakeholders’ impact upon marketing activities of the organization
Apple communicate its core business issues with its internal stakeholders like employees using
various kinds of methods such as: communicating with weekly reports, partnering with
management and communicating daily, receive complaints through a new complaint system,
having an Apple team 24*7 on their websites and interviewing their workers daily. They have
also updated their communication policies after discovering factory violations which mostly
included uncontrolled working hours and age discrimination during recruiting (Hao and et. al.,
2018). Introduction of weekly reporting has helped Apple to communicate with their suppliers as
well and these methods chosen and applied by Apple has been proven quite successful.
All the stakeholders of an organizations like Apple are significantly impact a business
especially marketing activities, sales revenue and customers perception. Customers one of the
most important stakeholders of Apple and they directly impact marketing activities of the
organization as company need to plan their marketing activities in such a manner that it attracts a
greater number of customers. Employees are another stakeholder of apple and they impact
marketing activities as they are the one who put all of their efforts in order to make marketing
activities successful and meet their desired and defined marketing objectives.
TASK 1B
Reflection on communication tool used by Apple
Communication can be defined as a way or an act of conveying meaning or message or
information from one entity or group with the help of mutually understood signs, symbols, and
semiotic rules. It can also be defined as way of exchanging information by speaking, writing, or
using some other medium.
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There are various kinds of communication models that can be used to exchange information
between two parties. One of the most common communication models is interactional model.
This model of communication is mostly used by organizations in order to communicate with
their customers through internet, social media websites and many more (Chen and Ann, 2016). It
is also known as convergence model. This communication model is used by most of the
companies because using this model organizations can communicate with large number of
customers.
Figure 1 interactional communication model
Integrated marketing communication can be defined as a concept which is used by
organizations in order to integrate and coordinate their communication channels in order to
deliver consistent and clear messages. It mainly focuses on usage of media by ensuing
consistency of the messages. It is important for organizations like Apple to focus on integrated
marketing communication so that all kinds of promotional activities and messages can be
integrated and a consistent message can be delivered to the customers (Chen and Ann, 2016).
there are various kinds of IMC tools that can be used by organizations such as: advertising, sales
promotion, personal selling, public relations, direct marketing and many more. There are various
kinds of promotional methods that are used by Apple in order to do promotion of their products
and services. Apple uses advertisement, personal selling, sales promotion, public relation and
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direct marketing for promotion of their products and services and get in touch with their
customers in a much better and enhanced manner. These promotional strategies help Apple to
promote their products and services and generate awareness among their customers which further
helps them to enhance their overall sales and revenue.
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REREFENCES
Books and Journals
Chen, C.M. and Ann, B.Y., 2016. Efficiencies vs. importance-performance analysis for the
leading smartphone brands of Apple, Samsung and HTC. Total Quality Management &
Business Excellence. 27(3-4). pp.227-249.
D O'Rourke, A., 2018. The world apple market. Routledge.
Hao, J., and et. al., 2018. Cooperative membership and farmers’ choice of marketing channels–
Evidence from apple farmers in Shaanxi and Shandong Provinces, China. Food
policy. 74. pp.53-64.
Kodama, M., 2018. Apple versus Sony: strategy transformation by capabilities congruence
through asset orchestration: Driving Congruence in Capabilities. In Sustainable Growth
Through Strategic Innovation. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Peng, X., 2018, January. Study on Apple Marketing Model Based on Modern Aksu Region in
Xinjiang. In 2017 5th International Education, Economics, Social Science, Arts, Sports
and Management Engineering Conference (IEESASM 2017). Atlantis Press.
Pissonnier, S., and et. al., 2016. Factors driving growers’ selection and implementation of an
apple crop protection strategy at the farm level. Crop protection. 88. pp.109-117.
Short, C., 2018. Who is an Apple consumer and what defines them? A qualitative study (Doctoral
dissertation).
Singh, H., 2019. The apple of your eye: marketing in aesthetics. Journal of Aesthetic
Nursing. 8(8). pp.406-407.
Tansim, M., 2018. An Organizational Analysis on Apple. European Journal of Business and
Management. 10(11).
Wang, D., 2020. Nutritional Value of Apple Dry Valley Citrate and E-commerce Marketing of
Agricultural Products. Archivos Latinoamericanos de Nutrición. 70(1).
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