Introduction
Why study Apple, Inc.?
Apple Inc. – one of the most famous companies in the technology market, leading its history from the 80s of the last century. Thanks to this company’s products, mobile technology has been forever rethought and formed in its current form. The company controls the modern technology market on a global level.
Apple Inc. has asserted itself as a trendsetter in mobile devices and is characterized with a strong brand loyalty. Although Apple started as a venture between two people, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, it is now a massive corporation with market shares in various industries (Rawlinson, 2017). The importance of Apple as a brand is difficult to overestimate. It is all the more important and exciting to study the company from various perspectives and aspects.
This paper aims to research the Apple brand to get a complete picture of the operation of this enterprise in terms of three factors. These include studying Apple’s legacy, analyzing its position in the market, and assessing brand success through an average user’s eyes.
Brand Heritage
Without a doubt, Apple’s legacy is of immense importance to the industry as a whole.
Jobs and Wozniak’s first products were the Apple I and Apple II personal computers, which are the first PCs sold fully assembled (Rawlinson, 2017). They were followed by the Macintosh, which became the ancestor of the Mac line. Finally, in the late 90s, Apple announced the “Think Different” advertising campaign, which becomes the basis for its further development, even after twenty years (Weindruch, no date).
Such a rich past gives the company many advantages in current marketing and management. For example, research shows that Apple’s strong brand ratings are also partially related to the company’s mental connection to its past (Miniard et al., 2018). On the other hand, a strong bond with established concepts theoretically makes it somewhat difficult to move into new influence areas. However, there are far more benefits than weaknesses from such a rich past and well-used legacy.
Brand heritage is mainly defined by its core values, longevity, and historical identity, as well as the use of symbols. As such, Apple has a promising longevity of its products and three guiding values of its branding strategy, such as elegance of design, simplicity of use, and the application of the fastest processors on the market.
Brand Positioning
Thinking differently strategy: smart, innovative, clever, and creative.
Apple Inc. is one of the most innovative companies in the high-tech consumer technology market. An ordinary user can assess the company’s fame and scale without even resorting to any means of statistics.
This corporation shares the market pedestal with Samsung, having a considerable lead over all other companies since these two firms have 40% of the market sales (Dolata, 2017). Apart from the South Korean company, there is no single company capable of posing a threat to Apple. This situation is exacerbated because the American corporation had a market share of 23.4 percent at the end of 2020 (O’Dea, 2021). The reason for this is the high manufacturability of the products, the impeccable quality and the reputation accumulated over the years (Liu, 2021). These factors are objective advantages that keep Apple at the top of the sales. However, the flip side of such popularity is the increased attention to the company’s actions, expressed in harsh criticism even with the slightest mistakes.
Apple Inc. is based on three core tenets, including simplicity, creativity, and humanity.Its branding success is enabled by the strategic vision of transcending simple desktop computing, such as innovative and smart mobile devices and tablet computers.
Customer Perception
Nevertheless, despite all the severity of the corporation’s attitude, it also takes the top in consumer satisfaction indices. According to research, in 2020, Apple had an American Customer Satisfaction Index of 82, which is higher than all its closest competitors (Clover, 2020). Another measure of the assessment is the Net Promoter Score, which reflects consumers’ interaction with the brand, and is also extremely high for this industry (‘The reasons behind Apple’s customer loyalty and high NPS’, 2018). The reason for these indicators is the policy that the company has followed over the years.
This strategy is based on three main factors: empathy, concentration and imputing (Strauss, 2017). Apple continually communicates with its customers, finding out precisely what they need, after which it focuses as much as possible on providing customers with the highest quality product. By focusing on the quality and presentation of products, a similar image is formed around the brand, which brings the company many benefits and profits. On the other hand, for many, Apple is associated with huge profits, a closed hardware platform, and overpriced items inherent in a luxury item rather than a practical tool. Consumers trust the company because of its true leadership, ongoing improvement, incomparable value, the Apple experience, fascinating launching performance, safety, and security.
Conclusion
Apple Inc. is an expertly cohesive brand occupies holding a strong position in the market, dominating all other consumer electronics manufacturers.
Firstly, this is possible thanks to the rich and extensive history of the brand, rooted in the 80s of the last century. Because Apple has had a direct impact on shaping the industry as a whole, the corporation has an honorable reputation as a pioneer and innovator.
This position allows the company to occupy the first lines of the ratings, being the dominant representative in the market, practically not meeting any competition.
The core competence of the Apple brand implies its ability to provide exceptional customer experience through elegant user interface and simplicity of use.
Finally, this foundation is successfully supported by Apple’s tactics, communicating directly with customers, adapting to their needs, and providing them with the highest quality product.
Summing up these factors, it can be concluded that Apple’s position in the market is robust. There are practically no factors that can shake the state of the corporation, even despite the ongoing struggle with Samsung. However, this provision means that the company is obliged to develop further, investing in innovations and new trends.
Reference List
- Clover, J. (2020). Apple continues to top overall smartphone customer satisfaction index. Web.
- Dolata, U. (2017). ‘Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Microsoft: Market concentration-competition-innovation strategies’, SOI Discussion Paper, 1, pp. 1-33.
- Liu, Z. (2021). ‘Analysis of Apple Inc.’s innovation dilemma from the perspective of leadership,’ Proceedings of the 6th annual international conference on social science and contemporary humanity development, Stuttgart, 551-554. Web.
- Miniard, P.W., et al. (2018). ‘What brand extensions need to fully benefit from their parental heritage’, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 46(5), pp. 948-963. Web.
- O’Dea, S. (2021). Market share of Apple iPhone smartphone sales worldwide 2007-2020. Web.
- Rawlinson, N. (2017). History of Apple: The story of Steve Jobs and the company he founded. Web.
- Strauss, M. (2017). Why Apple is best when it comes to understanding customers. Web.
- The reasons behind Apple’s customer loyalty and high NPS. (2018). Web.
- Weindruch, B. (no date). Using your heritage to differentiate your brand. Web.