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A study of the company Apple regarding the 7 P’s of the Marketing Mix 8 September 2010 Contents Introduction………………………………………………………………. 3 Creators/Founders………………………………………………………. 4 Marketing Mix……………………………………………………………. 5 Product………………………………………………………………………. 6 Price…………………………………………………………………………… 8 Promotion……………………………………………………………………. Place………………………………………………………………………….. 10 Physical Evidence………………………………………………………. 11 People……………………………………………………………………….. 12 Process……………………………………………………………………….. 13 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………. 14 Bibliography………………………………………………………………. 15 Introduction
In the 21st century, Apple is one of the largest companies in the technology market. For many years Apple fought against Microsoft in the home computer market. Today, Apple is a bigger company than Microsoft in terms of turnover. Apple is an American multinational corporation which is best-known for its hardware and software products. The hardware products are: Macintosh, iPod, iPhone and iPad. One example of the famous software of Apple is iTunes, a proprietary media player application that works with iTunes store and allow customers to download music and offers other features of consumer electronics.
The company was established on January 3, 1976 in Cupertino, California by three people: Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne. The first product that they launched was the Apple I a hand-built computer by Wozniak which went on sale in July 1976. They continued to improve the computer system and created Apple II and Apple III which was launched in May 1980 to compete with IBM and Microsoft in the computer market. After launching the Apple III, Steve Jobs wanted to work on the new computer called Apple’s Lisa but the Lisa team pushed him into a Jeff Raskin’s low-cost computer project, the Macintosh computer.
The Macintosh was first shown to the public in 1984. (Owen Linzmayer,1999) The company is estimated to have 34,300 full time employees, 2,500 temporary full time employee worldwide and a annual sales of $42. 91 billion in 2009, As of 2010 the company has 301 retail stores in ten countries. (Apple Inc,2010) Creators/founders The three founders remained working together from the beginning but Ronald Wayne gave up and sold his shares to Jobs and Wozniak for just $800.
Wozniak and Jobs still working together but an aircraft accident occurred to Wozniak which left him unable to work for 2 years, from 1981 to 1983. He came back to the company but after3 years on February 6 in 1987, he left Apple but remained as an employee and one of the shareholders. (Owen Linzmayer, 1999) Steve Jobs was fired after the Macintosh project because of disagreement with some other employees and he created the Next Computer company as well as Pixar a computer animated feature films but Apple bought some shares from Next Computers and he came back to the company after nearly 10 years.
The key persons in the company today are: Steve Jobs who is the chairman and CEO; Tim Cook the COO (Chief Operating Officer); Peter Oppenheimer CFO (Chief Finance Officer); Bob Mansfield the Mac and iPhone hardware engineer, and Jonathan Ive the industrial designer. (Apple inc, 2007) Marketing mix The concept of the Marketing Mix was first created by Neil H. Borden in his article called The concept of the Marketing Mix in 1964. In his article he explained the importance of a market to try to “mix ingredients” in their process in the market in order to be successful.
He included in his “mixer ingredients” product, price, branding, advertising, personal selling, etc. Another person who spoke about the Marketing Mix was James Culliton, who grouped the ingredients in four categories: Product, Price, Promotion and Place. A few years later three more were included, extended the marketing Mix: Physical evidence, People and Process. Businesses need to meet the following conditions: ???Product must look good and work well. ???Right Price. ???Right place at the right time. ???Successful promotion helps a firm to spread costs over a larger output.
Product Some of the product decisions are: branding, quality, functionality, etc. These decisions explain the role of the product in a marketing mix, where a company relates its products with the marketing mix. A product must address the needs of customers as identified in market research. (NetMba, 2002) Apple, which is a large company, also follows the idea of the Marketing Mix. Its best known hardware products are Macintosh computer, iPod, iPhone and the latest product iPad. The Macintosh Computer is a personal computer that was first launched on January 1 1984.
The project for this product had started in the 1970s and it was envisioned as an easy-to-use, low-cost computer for the average consumer. (Tom Hormby, 2006) The iPod is a portable media player the idea for which came first to the mind of Steve Jobs because he saw the design of the mp3 players and he thought that they were an “awful product”. That is why he decided to create a media player called the iPod in October 2001. The company has developed this product and also created the iPod touch, iPod classic, iPod nano and the Ipod shuffle.
The company sold 260 million units worldwide in that year, but they have received some criticism about battery problems and allegations of worker exploitation. (Leander kahney, 2006) The iPhone is a Smartphone first launched in January 9, 2007 and the company was investigation a “touch screen” features. The iPhone includes camera phone, text messages, visual voicemail and web browsers. In July 11, 2007 Apple launched the iPhone 3G in 22 countries which sold 6. 1 million units. (Mathew honan, 2007) The iPad is the latest product launched by Apple. Is a tablet computer and appeared in the market in April 2010 selling 3 million units in 80 days. Apple inc, 2010) The latest product has found competitors from Samsung and in China. Samsung is about to launch the galaxy tablet which includes some points the iPad does not have such as a camera and the possibility of using it as a cell phone. The Chinese competition is the iPed, which was launched in June 2010 and is a cheaper imitation with a lower resolution. (Paul Davis, August 2010) PRICE The price refers to how a company prices its products and which strategies it uses including discounts, offer and deals, they are using in order to obtain profit. Pricing must be competitive . Medha Behera, 2008) Apple prices its product differently in different countries. The latest product that they launched was iPad. This product price also varies according to the country. For example in the UK the iPad with 64GB including Wifi+3G is ? 699; the same product but in USA is $829 around ? 536. 743. In France also the price varies and it is ???799 (around ? 667. 084). (Apple inc, 2010) Apple claim the reason why is doing this is that they need to pay higher taxes and higher cost of transportation in Europe countries than other countries and also they include other costs.
PROMOTION This refers to the various ways of communicating with the customers. It is about informing them about the benefits of using a particular product or service rather than just talking about its features. Steve Jobs is part of the promotion of the company because every time the company is about to launch a product he always give a speech explaining the benefits of the new products and show the audience the innovation of its products and the company itself. There are three major advertisements that have made the company famous. The first one was for the first Macintosh in 1984.
They wanted to reflect that people do not need to be satisfied with one thing, they need to have an ambition of something better and thus the Macintosh is the product that they need. (Pogue and Schorr 1993) The second one, is the one called “Think Different: because people who are crazy enough who think they can change the world are ones who do” this is the sentence that they used to close the advert. The last one is the newest one where they use two individuals: Mac and Pc and where Mac explains the new features that they do in the company for the products and shows that PC cannot compete with the Mac. wikpedia, June, 2010] PLACE The place refers to the channel of distribution that the company uses to sell its products. Having the right product in the right place at the right time involves the distribution system. There are different ways to distribute a product and different people that can be involved in the distribution system. In Apple, they use the on-line store which goes directly to the customer, if we do not include the delivery process. They also used to sell their products to the wholesaler which they going to sell it to retailers and finally to the end user.
They have chosen shorter channels of distribution due to the active role of Apple in the design of this systems [Alberto Zanco, 2007] PHYSICAL EVIDENCE The physical evidence of the marketing mix refers to the shop, how you make the evidence that your company is there. For example this is a picture of the Apple store in London. They all have the same pattern: tables with the product which is ready to be tested by customers. They put up pictures about the company and in some periods about the product that they are promoting at the time. PEOPLE This refers to the people who are involved in the business such as employees.
I am going to take the example the employees of the company because they are as important as the managers, but the people of marketing mix is related to the appearance of the employee and how they treat the customers. Apple’s employee used to wear a black t-shirt with the Apple logo and a chain that represents an iPod to reflect where they are working and representing the company and the products that they promote. PROCESS This refers to the process and method to provide a service. It is related to how you obtain a efficient service delivery. For example the process to buy an iPad in a Apple on-line store.
The process that you do until you have the product in your hands. The first thing is to enter the website to see the products and choose the iPad after seeing what it is offering. Next put in into the basket and you go the method of payment where you will choose the best way to pay. After paying you need to wait for the delivery. This is a brief explanation of a process when buying a product in an on-line store. CONCLUSION As we have seen Apple has made a great impact in the market with its products starting with the Macintosh computers and ending with consumer electronics hardware such as iPod.
The hardware iProducts are the ones which has put the company into a dominant position in a market. There is an increase number of people who use the iProducts rather than the other consumer electronics such as mp3 players or other brands mobile phones. I wanted to reflect that, every company even an small company need to follow a maket orientation, a market that goes directly to the customers not focusing in the company itself. It is a definition of what marketing means. Apple try to follow this by innovation and introducing new products in the market to satisfy consumers needs and wants. BIBLIOGRAPHY Linzmayer, R.
W. (1999), Apple Confidential: The Real Story of Apple Computer, Inc, Books and Authors: The Denver Post. Borden, N. H. (1964), The concept of the Marketing Mix,, 2002), Marketing Mix. NetMBA: Business Knowledge Center. Available from: http://www. netmba. com/marketing/mix/ [Accessed: August 24, 2010]. Hornmby, T. (2007), The Story Behind Apple’s Newton. . Available from: http://lowendmac. com/orchard/06/john-sculley-newton-origin. html [Accessed: September 7, 2010]. Kahney, L. (2006), Straight Dope on the Ipod’s Birth. . Available from: http://www. wired. com/gadgets/mac/commentary/cultofmac/2006/10/71956