MKT302 Digital Marketing: Apple's Weak Digital Strategy Analysis

This report analyzes Apple's digital marketing strategies, highlighting the reasons for its lack of success. It begins by introducing the Apple brand, its offerings, positioning, and target audience. The report then describes Apple's digital marketing strategies, evaluating its website and social media platforms to identify weaknesses. It attributes the unsuccessful strategy to flaws in new iPhone releases and negative social media feedback. Finally, the report identifies Samsung as a successful competitor, attributing its success to affordable pricing, quality products, and effective digital marketing communication. Desklib offers more resources for students seeking solved assignments and past papers.

Running head: DIGITAL MARKETING
Digital Marketing
Name of Student
Name of University
Author Note

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DIGITAL MARKETING
Table of contents
Introduction of the brand............................................................................................................2
Describing the digital marketing strategies of the brand...........................................................2
Explaining the reason for being unsuccessful in the digital marketing strategy........................3
Identifying successful competitor brand....................................................................................4
Reference....................................................................................................................................5

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DIGITAL MARKETING
Introduction of the brand
Apple is an American multinational technology company that is headquartered in
California. The company is known best for the brand of latest technologies that it
manufactures and sells in the market. Products such as consumer electronics, smartphones,
computer software and online services come under the Apple brand. It also includes iPhones
that have been most recently launched by the brand. Apple is one of the most popular brands
that is going around the market in the modern world. Currently, the brand provides all types
of technological facilities that are positioned high in the market. The current technology of
the company has contributed to the increase in the reputation of the company in the market.
Some of the competitors of Apple include Samsung, Nokia and Blackberry that are
involved in the manufacturing of phones and other technical services for the people. The
target market for Apple is the young generation and the people that reside in the higher class
of a society. The price of the Apple iPhones is considered to be higher for the middle-class
people. The young generation enjoys the latest technology in terms of a phone as well as in
the laptop and computers that are used (Apple.com 2018).
Describing the digital marketing strategies of the brand
According to Ellis-Chadwick and Chaffey (2016), digital marketing is considered as a
form of marketing that is done by using platforms such as the websites, social media and
blogs. The target audience in the digital marketing strategy of business organisations usually
covers a wide range of the population. This form of marketing is considered as a future form
of marketing for the promotion of the business. In the case of Apple, the company uses a
systematic digital marketing strategy. The product that is about to be sold by the brand is
defined and the objectives of the company are laid down.

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DIGITAL MARKETING
The target audiences are selected using the responses from the social media websites.
As stated earlier, the target of Apple normally consists of the young generation. Apple uses
the digital channel of social media to get in touch with the target audiences. Tuten and
Solomon (2015) stated that the implication of social media for digital marketing is effective
in the modern world as young people spent most of the time on the social media websites
such as Facebook. A general marketing audit can help Apple to understand the changes that
are required in the market.
Explaining the reason for being unsuccessful in the digital marketing strategy
Row (2006) is of the opinion that digital marketing strategy is not always successful
for a company. This is mainly because of the fact that the strategies of a company in using a
social media channel may backfire if the product is found to have certain flaws. Social media
provides an advantage of reaching a large mass of audience and for the quick promotion of
the products. At the same time, any flaws discovered in the products may deplete the
reputation of a brand. In the case of Apple, the reason behind the unsuccessful digital
marketing strategy is that the company had conducted various experiments with the new
release of the iPhones.
Apart from the high prices, the phones were rumoured to have a bad battery backup
one that may cause an explosion. This prompted the target audience to reject the use of the
phones and consequently, the digital marketing strategy was deemed as a failure. The use of
social media for the promotion of the phones backfired as the social media provided the news
of the flaw of the product thereby, creating a competitive disadvantage for the company.

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DIGITAL MARKETING
Identifying successful competitor brand
Samsung has been a successful brand in electronic products for over 80 years. With a
change in time and preference of the society, Samsung has managed to affiliate a number of
businesses within the market (Samsung com 2018). Samsung has a huge influence on the
economic development of South Korea and is exceptionally popular in other parts of the
world. The company provides services and products that are associated with computers and
laptops as well. One such business is the manufacturing of phones that provide direct
competition to Apple (Ryan and Jones 2009). The digital marketing strategy of Samsung has
contributed to providing close competition to Apple in the manner that the prices of the
product are much lesser than Apple.
Apart from this, the company also provides quality products that target every people
irrespective of the segments. Unlike Apple, the products of Samsung are affordable and
provide target audience with a range of facilities to choose. The selection of the digital
marketing communication enables the company to gain a good reputation via the social
media. Thus, this can be considered as a reason for the success of the company over Apple in
digital marketing.

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Reference
Apple.com 2018. Apple. [online] Available at: https://www.apple.com/ [Accessed 10 Apr.
2018].
Ellis-Chadwick F, and Chaffey D, 2016, Digital Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and
Practice, 6th edition.
Row, H, 2006, ‘Influencing the Influencers: How Online Advertising and Media Impact
Word of Mouth’, DoubleClick Touchpoints IV Focus Report
Ryan, D., and Jones, C., 2009, Understanding Digital Marketing: Marketing strategies for
engaging the digital generation, Kogan Page
Samsung com. 2018. Samsung. [online] Available at: http://www.samsung.com/in/ [Accessed
10 Apr. 2018].
Tuten T, and Solomon M, 2015, Social Media Marketing, 2nd edition.