Apple’s Extended Marketing Mix
The ‘marketing mix’ is a grouping of marketing techniques that are used to market a brand (Farell & Linsdley, 2008).
There are 7 P’s that make up the extended marketing mix; Product, Price, Place, Promotion, Physical Evidence, Process and People.
Apple is an American-based multinational company that deals in the sale and design of personal computers, computer software and a range of hand-held gadgets and their marketing mix is a great example to use when studying the Marketing Mix.
In this post, I first want to share with you one photo under each of these P’s which will, hopefully, demonstrate Apple’s effective use of the Marketing Mix. Secondly, I’d like to outline in some more detail Apple’s use of the P Promotion.
PRODUCT
Every business has something to offer customers, something that they can purchase, this is the product (or service). The product includes both tangible and intangible attribute (Bloomsbury Business, 2016).
PRICE
Price refers to the amount a customer has to pay for a product or service. A huge part of Apple’s pricing strategy is that they don’t get involved in price wars, instead, Apple sticks to its pricing albeit higher than competitors. They do this by drawing focus on the luxury and premium quality of their product.
Price Skimming is another method Apple adopts in it’s pricing strategy — whereby newer lines are more expensive when initially launched.
PLACE
This pillar relates to where and how customers can purchase the product and service, as well as relating to how accessible your product or service is to access.
PROMOTION
Promotion looks at the various ways a product/information about a product is disseminated.
PHYSICAL EVIDENCE
The Physical Evidence pillar encapsulates anything that customers can have as proof of the existence of the business (Bloomsbury Business, 2016).
PROCESS
Process relates to both how the product is built and how it is delivered [Farell & Linsdley, 2008]
Apple is well known for its operations and process, their processes quite simple, but highly sophisticated.
PEOPLE
People are an inaugural part of any business.
Steve Jobs, one of the masterminds behind Apple, has an iconic, celebrity identity. Generally speaking CEO’s are not known as visible public figures, however, Apple has excelled from having Jobs (and now Tim Cook) in the public eye. Their CEO acts as the frontier for the brand and hosts of various events throughout the year.
PROMOTION AS PART OF APPLE’S MARKETING MIX
The Chartered Institue of Marketing (CIM) defines marketing as; “…the management process for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably” [Chartered Instituted of Marketing]
The Marketing Mix (or 7P’s) refers to the seven pillars that make up a set of actions that a company uses to promote its products to its chosen market [The economic times]. This report aims to consider Apple’s marketing strategy paying particular attention to Promotion.
Kolter and Armstrong define Promotion as ‘activities that communicate the merits of the product’ and the ‘promotion mix’ as the blend of promotional tools used to communicate your product or service to consumers [Farell & Linsdley, 2008]
I will attempt to deliver an overview of Apple’s use of promotion and explore how effective Apple is at using this “P” to achieve marketing success. I will analyse how these activities have adapted over time and how they differ to those of their competitors.
Apple’s target audience is diverse; therefore, it is extremely important they develop various different marketing channels in order to promote their products. Apple uses both outbound and inbound marketing to promote their brand.
Apple is currently the Number 1 valued brand in the world, in 2018 the tech titan was said to be worth $182.2 billion {Forbes]. Apple has gained a large customer base despite competition with other tech giants like Samsung, Google and Microsoft and there is no doubt that this is in part due to how Apple evolves and uses the promotional mix to achieve marketing success.
In its early stages, Apple used lengthy and visually crowded print advertisements. However, research suggested that people retain only 10% of information when presented in this manner and 65% if presented in a visual way (http://www.brainrules.net/vision). Apple is an excellent demonstration of how a global company advances to meet market trends as we see them swap wordy advertisements for slick, clean prints and videos. Now, Apple’s consumers need only be shown a series of short clips to understand the concept behind a new product, its features and its capabilities.
Apple’s CEO Tim Cook stated to Think Marketing that one of Apple’s core values is ‘believe in the simple, not the complex’. It is clear that this fundamental value shines through in all that Apple does, including through its minimalist approach to promotional activity. Take Apples video marketing for example. IPhone launch videos are always similar, a solid color background and a short clip that highlights the advantages of the new product.
Apple and Samsung have always been seen to have aggressive competition; this becomes apparent when considering both marketing strategies. In 2014 Apple launched a campaign entitled ‘Your Verse’ which featured people using the IPad doing ‘incredible things in their own way’. Later that year Samsung launched its own campaign entitled ‘Incredible Art Piece’ which was designed to promote works of art created using the Galaxy Note Pen. On the surface these campaigns seem to highlight similarities between the brands, however essentially they highlight the basic difference in their approach — Apple’s epicenter lies with how its products integrate into peoples lives, while Samsung emphasises its features and product capabilities.
It is important also to consider how Apple adopts its use of promotion to meet developments in technology. Apple joined YouTube in 2005, Twitter in 2009 and Instagram in 2017, using each platform to engage with its customers in a creative, helpful and personable way. Apple’s YouTube channel provides ‘how to’ videos, while their Twitter account posts ‘tips, tricks and helpful information when you need it most’ allows consumers interact with customer services teams in a fast and effective way.
I believe one of Apples’ most powerful platforms is its Instagram account. Media, captured on the IPhone, all over the world is exhibited on this platform. By using the hashtag #ShotOniPhone users have a chance to be featured on Apple’s account. This gives Apple a chance to interact with customers while advertising the abilities of its products and demonstrating how they can be easily integrated into our lives.
In conclusion, I believe Apple is successful at using promotion to achieve marketing success. Over the years Apple has grown remarkably, becoming a household name, opening 506 stores and seeing their profits rise. It is easy to see that this success has been aided by their set effective use of promotion.
In the future, it would be anticipated that Apple will continue to swiftly and cautiously adapt and evolve their promotional mix to align with how consumers digest and retain information. With the brand loyalty that Apple maintains and with the level of quality in its products, it is sure that further increase in sales will follow.
