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An Evaluation of Marketing Practices Used by Apple Inc.

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An Evaluation of Marketing Practices Used by Apple Inc.

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 (insidecrm.com). 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 Marketing Warfare.

As one of the older and more prominent theories discussed here, the 4-P Marketing Mix was created by E. Jerome McCarthy in 1960, which incorporates the aspects of product, price, place and promotion. In terms of products and services, Apple Inc’s main sources of revenue are from sales of PCs and laptops, iPods, iPhones and iTunes downloads (theapplemuseum.com). Unlike other competitors, Apple Inc has become well known for its focus on high quality and ease of use in all its products (macnn.com). The spinning wheel on the iPod and the new, user-oriented interface system for the iMac are perfect examples of Apple’s strive towards simple product interaction that anyone could understand. Tying

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