Apple Company Public Relations

Apple Company Public Relations

The technology industry is one of the industries that have been dominated by large multinational companies, thus increasing competition. The rapid development of technology also requires industry organizations to adopt various measures to acquire and maintain a favorable customer base. Apple company is an American global company that has redesigned and reshaped the technology world (Aljafari, 2016). The company is widely recognized for functional and unique designs that continue enhancing both new and existing customers. The company is among the largest companies in the world in terms of technology and information. It is also among the leading phone manufacturers in the world. The company has maintained its success by not only focusing on the manufacturing and sale of a wide range of high-quality products but also focusing on an effective marketing strategy (Aljafari, 2016). The company occasionally changes its market direction by producing products that are highly appreciated in the market. Apple is the number one illustration that using the right marketing and public relations strategies can help a company with specialized products survive in a competitive market and acquire a large market share.

Analyze how the organization used public relations to create a brand and influence public opinion.

In the late 90s, Apple was facing stiff competition from different technology companies to the extent of becoming bankrupt. In 1997, Steve Jobs became in charge of the company and altered its direction. The company began experiencing gradual growth by launching unique products. The products were promoted using advertisements characterized by simple and clever language. The company also embarked on unique campaigns. Paroutis et al. (2016) said it invested in public relations to create its brand and influence public opinion by considering various public relations approaches. One of the approaches used was storytelling. The company adopted the use of storytelling to create a brand by presenting a villain or problem and then explaining the solution (Aljafari, 2016). The solution in the stories would always be the company’s latest product. The stories also involved ordinary heroes who had been underserved by complicated technology. The second public relations strategy used was simplicity. The company ensured that all its products were simple. The argument for adopting simplicity was that the solutions offered by other companies were too complicated because of hierarchical structures, the processes involved, and data analysis (Paroutis et al., 2016). The third strategy was press releases. Apple used press releases that were personally read and approved by the company’s CEO. The press releases were written in simple language to ensure that the average person understood them. The fourth public relations strategy was encouraging the public to learn from their failures. The company’s CEO shared how he failed in 1985 and later created the iMac, a breakthrough in the computer industry. The company then introduced other successful products, including the iPhone (Paroutis et al., 2016). The CEO stated that experiencing failure taught him how to see more opportunities and adopt a more entrepreneurial mindset.

The fifth strategy was the golden circle strategy, which involved telling compelling stories. The strategy focused on individual reason, purpose, core belief, the reason for the organization’s existence, why anyone should care, how the company fulfills its main beliefs, and what is done to fulfill the core belief. The sixth strategy is product reviews. The company was paying close attention to product reviews and understanding the reviewers. The company also tailored the material to the reviewers and their audiences. The seventh strategy was top-down secrecy and discipline. The company maintained secrecy about launching its products. This helped to ensure that the news about a new product continued to be real news until it was announced. The company also used culture marketing, including incorporating its products into popular culture or ensuring that high-profile individuals, organizations, and businesses use its products.

Assess how is the selected organization is adapting to the social media sites and other venues in the 21st century.

The 21^st century is characterized by the rapid use of technology and social media platforms to gather information about products. Apple has established a collaboration between its products and social media sites to increase the use of Apple products among social media users, particularly millennials. The 21^st century is also characterized by many organizations being integrated into different social media platforms through communication and marketing methods in terms of networking and marketing (Fathi, 2018). Apple company has been using social sites to establish relationships with its investors, customers, and other businesses using social networking. This indicates that using social media is a marketing technique that has enabled Apple to market its products. The company has also been using social networking to adapt to the modern-day unique leadership styles that include planning and organizing, organization design and culture, human resource management staffing functions, understanding and encouraging teamwork, communication, and interpersonal skills, motivating and rewarding employees, ensuring quality management and productivity, and controlling functional connections. Many of these leadership functions have been embraced and implemented while managing and planning organizational changes, control, and functions (Fathi, 2018). Apple company has been using social media sites to identify new talent to hire, thus maintaining innovation in manufacturing its products. The company has also been customizing the content it posts on social media sites to reach its customers. For instance, it has created various Twitter accounts, with each account being dedicated to something different, such as iTunes, which is used for Apple Music, and the other Twitter account for support. The company’s main official page is not active, but the support page tweets followers on important technical problems. The page is mainly used for awareness and education. Customers remain engaged by using tweets to communicate the latest technical features of the company’s products. Apple has also established a working YouTube account for video marketing.

Identify a crisis that the organization has faced or is facing and analyze how it was or is being handled by the organization.

Being among the dominant companies in a competitive industry exposes such companies to various crises, some of which are caused by competitors. The main crisis that Apple company has faced is ethical issues. Over the years, the company has encountered many ethical issues ranging from violations of child labor laws, violation of the natural rights of workers, paying workers low wages, and unethical hiring practices (Hoangova, 2018). In a report published by Amnesty International in 2016, the company was accused of supporting the abuse of human rights due to the abuse of human rights in the Democratic Republic of Congo mines (Hoangova, 2018). The mines are Apple company’s source of cobalt, which is a major component in the batteries used for the electronic devices produced by the company. After this incident, the company was accused of child labor. The company defended these claims, as well as the claims on the violation of human rights in DRC, by stating that the company does not tolerate child labor and is proud to have been a leader in establishing new safeguards in the technology industry (Hoangova, 2018). The company further stated that it has rigorous audits, strict standards, effective preventive measures, and actively looks for any violations. It also stated that suppliers found hiring workers who are underage must fully finance the education of the workers at a school selected by the worker and his or her family, fund the safe return home for the worker, offer the worker a job upon reaching the legal age and continue paying the worker’s wages. According to Hoangova (2018), the company added that it has been reporting on its supply chain for ten years due to the belief in transparency and feedback associated with it, and concerns are taken seriously, which is why all allegations are investigated.

Apple company has also been accused of unethical hiring practices in its supply chain to acquire its raw materials. The company responded by stating that its supplier was using recruiters who were asking for a certain fee from potential employees (Hoangova, 2018). The company insisted that the recruiters refunded all employees who had paid the fee. The suppliers refunded 4,500 workers $4 million dollars after Apple insisted that the suppliers refund the workers. After this crisis, a recording taken at an Apple production line in China showed workers falling asleep after working for 18 consecutive days, with every shift lasting 16 hours. According to Paroutis et al. (2016), the reporters who recorded the employees in the production line found that there was a breach of standards on the factory work floor. The company had claimed that it was protecting its Chinese workers from human rights violations, but the evidence proved otherwise. The company, however, denied the allegations.

Compare and contrast the public relations campaigns of your organization and another organization. If your organization is for-profit, select a non-profit organization for your comparison organization, and if your organization is non-profit, select a for-profit.

According to Seitel (2017), public relations are important for both for-profit and non-profit organizations. However, in both instances, the goal is to gain the support of important constituencies or the public for what you do and how it is done (L’Etang, 2007). The two types of organizations also use similar tools in delivering the message. This section compares the public relations campaigns of Apple, a for-profit organization, and Morgan Memorial Goodwill Industries, a non-profit company. Morgan Memorial Goodwill Industries was founded in 1895 with the aim of helping people secure employment to maintain economic mobility and self-sufficiency. The organization has created a program involving participants who are people with noteworthy barriers, including physical and developmental disabilities, histories of incarceration and domestic violence, reliance on government benefits, and limited English. Most of the participants are low-income individuals, and most of them are from minority communities.

The main difference between Apple’s and Goodwill’s public relations campaigns is that Apple company’s campaigns are driven by their economic purpose while Goodwill’s campaigns are driven by social purpose. For non-profit organizations, public relations campaigns focus on the social value the organization creates within the communities it works with. In the case of Morgan Memorial Goodwill Industries, the social value is helping individuals with barriers to achieve independence and dignity through work in a self-sufficient way. This demonstrates the company’s value of its service in relation to creating a human impact. Apple’s economic purpose, on the other hand, is demonstrated in the use of statements that mainly concentrate on the benefits the company can bring to the customers. The public relations campaigns for Apple company, therefore, focus on what customers want to hear and experience to win them and convince them to purchase the company’s products. This shows that for-profit organizations are more concerned with investors and customers, while the success of non-profit organizations relies on the strengths of their donor bases and volunteers.

Generally, the difference between public relations in for-profit organizations and non-profit organizations can be summarized into five distinctions. One of them is that public relations campaigns for non-profit organizations develop communication channels between beneficiaries and the organization, while in for-profit organizations, public relations campaigns focus on establishing a communication channel between the company and its customers (Duhalm, 2010). The second distinction is that public relations campaigns for non-profit organizations focus on winning public acceptance for the mission of the organization, while public relations campaigns for for-profit organizations focus on winning public acceptance for the organization’s goods and services. The third distinction is that public relations campaigns for non-profit organizations create and maintain a conducive climate to raise funds, while public relations campaigns for for-profit organizations create and maintain a conducive climate for profit-making (Duhalm, 2010). The fourth distinction is that public relations campaigns in non-profit organizations focus on ensuring and maintaining public interest in the organization toward its mission, while in for-profit organizations, public relations campaigns focus on ensuring and maintaining the company’s interests toward maximizing profit (Duhalm, 2010). The final distinction is that public relations campaigns for non-profit organizations emphasize informing and motivating organizational staff involved, such as board members, volunteers, and employees, while public relations campaigns for for-profit organizations emphasize informing and motivating customers.

Conclusion

Apple company illustrates that using the right marketing and public relations strategies can help a company with specialized products to survive in a competitive market and acquire a large market share. It is, however, important for companies to select the most appropriate public relations strategies based on what the company intends to achieve. The public relations strategies also vary based on whether the company is for-profit or non-profit, hence the need to match public relations campaigns with the company’s mission.

References

Aljafari, A. (2016). Apple Inc. Industry Analysis Business Policy and Strategy. International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, 7(3).

Duhalm, S. (2010). The role and importance of public relations at non-governmental organizations. STUDIES AND SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH. ECONOMICS EDITION, (15). https://doi.org/10.29358/sceco.v0i15.140

Fathi, M. (2018). Social media as business ecosystem: Modeling users’ adoption of social networking sites. https://doi.org/10.24124/2015/bpgub1105

Hoangova, T. V. (2018). Appalling Ethics of Apple Inc. and the Progress Achieved [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. State University of New York.

L’Etang, J. (2007). Public relations: Concepts, practice, and critique. SAGE.

Paroutis, S., Heracleous, L., & Angwin, D. (2016). Practicing strategy: Text and cases. SAGE.

Seitel, F. P. (2017). The practice of public relations (13th ed.). Pearson Education Limited.

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Public Relations

For the Final Paper, you will be evaluating the public relations practices of an organization based on all of the chapters in the course text.

Apple Company Public Relations