Leading the Way - A Marketing Plan for Sustainable Competitive Essay

Leading the Way - A merchandising Plan for Sustainable agonistic Advantage - Essay Example apple may support to invest a great strike of financial and human capital effort into performing commercialize research to gain new market interest, something the firm is not experienced with as, historically, Apple has chosen to focus on developing existing markets through and through harvest-feast development strategies. merchandising Strategy and Analysis for Apple, Inc. 1.0 Introduction Apple, Inc. has long been considered a pioneering company an sophisticated organisation that develops unique products with features and benefits unavailable by competition that gives the business a positive(p) market position. Marketing has been one of the fundamental success factors for Apple, especially in relation to launch of the iPod, iPhone and iPad, methods of differentiating the business from other competition. Marketing is defined as being all-inclusive of all activities related to commercial exchanges that involve advertising, branding, distribution, establishment of determine structures, and responding to consumer behaviour patterns (McCall 2003). Apple successfully utilises marketing in order to build relationships with consumers that lead to brand loyalty, attachments that have consumers favouring Apple branded products over other competitive products offered by such competitors as Samsung and Blackberry. Apple focuses on grammatical construction a brand, a holistic representation of the business that is reflective of quality and internal bodied values. Branding is a strategy that creates the ability to build connectivity between internal market-centric assets and important target markets that countenance a business to nurture its resources effectively (Abimbola 2001). Apple maintains a brand strategy that reflects emotional appeals, building a brand personality that emphasises such consumer-centric concepts as inspiring passion and hope, power-to-the-people thro ugh facilitating technology, imagination and conversancy regained (Robinson 2012, p.2). This is how loyal markets view Apple as a leader in the technology industry. 2.0 Responses to competitor activities Apple uses marketing as a tool to create perceptions in desired target markets that Apple products and function as superior to competitor brands. Apple is adept in creating pioneering products that have relatively long product life cycles as competitors are not able to quickly replicate the features and benefits of Apple branded products. Apple, in the early 2000s, was able to gain favourable market attention and brand preference with diverse markets by being the first-to-market. According to marketing theory, the publicity associated with pre-launch activities set up the foundation for brand loyalty. When a first-mover achieves positive gains with an innovative product, they actually define the product category and are seen as a model by which consumers evaluate late movers (Agar wal and Gort 2001 Liberman and Montgomery 1988). Apple is not generally taken to creating marketing strategies as a response to competitive efforts, but to build proactive methodologies of promotion that enhance its public brand reputation through media coverage. The former CEO, Steve Jobs, used to serve as a relevant and trusted celebrity contributor that engaged many diverse consumer