Running Header: ANALYSIS OF APPLE'S MARKETING STRATEGY

Analysis of Apple's Marketing Strategy

Analysis of Apple's Marketing Strategy

Introduction

On April 1, 1976 Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs started and founded Apple Computers. Steve Job was the visionary and marketing expert while Wozniak was more about the technical aspects. In 2004 Mr. Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Then in 2009 Jobs to medical leave from the company. Since 2004, the Apple Company led its competition in revenue and margins. And with the introduction of the products (iMac, MacBook, iPod, iPhone, and iTunes) the company started to expand into the digital entertainment market. Apple Computer change the name of the company to Apple, Inc. to symbolize its new, more diversified nature.

Discussion

I believe that a major part of Apple, Inc.'s success fell on the fact that the introduced new, innovative products. No one in the digital entertainment market had any products even close to the iPod and iTunes technology that Apple introduced. And having such innovative product also created product differentiation for the company as well. People associated upscale and advanced products with the Apple brand. Making their products compatible with other computers besides Mac was a critical factor. Then people who didn't necessarily have the Mac computer but had an iPod could still use the product. The opening of the App Store allowed 3rd-party developers to create applications for purchase just for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Apple, Inc. also worked with other companies, such as Adobe, to make Mac-compatible programs. And making Apple software available for download to any computer platform was also a factor for success. Apple also had $25 billion dollars in the bank with no debt when the economy started to drop.

Organization theory represents a young and complex field of study related to the behavior of organizations and companies. Through particular methods like analysis, generalization and observation, organization theory specialists try to determine how companies and organizations will behave in certain situations. This paper will address the evaluation of marketing practices used by Apple.

Analysis of Marketing Practices

In the last few decades, with the advent of personal computers (or PCs), a handful of companies have battled for a market share in this continually growing industry. One such company, Apple Incorporated, has proven to be exceptionally innovative and successful at creating product lines that easily distinguish themselves from competitors' products. Apple, under the leadership of CEO Steve Jobs, has even begun to diversify its production, and in recent years, includes everything from music and entertainment software to numerous electronic appliances. Across all its different business sectors, Apple has been widely praised as being creative and original in its advertising and marketing strategies. It can be argued that Apple's massive success and profitably are strongly connected to the company's ability to accurately ascertain what the public wants and effectively market their products to customers. This paper will outline different marketing policies and strategies used by Apple Inc and compare them to academic marketing theories such as the Marketing Mix, Relationship Marketing and ...