MacBook Product Analysis

Introduction

Apple Inc. is a leading global telecommunications company specializing in consumer electronics. The company has maintained a legacy of producing high-quality electronics such as tablets, phones, music players, and computers with unique designs. The company has also been among the trendsetters in the phones, tablets, and computers market by introducing new designs to enhance usability and send a statement. This has made the company gain global recognition as a luxury company in the telecommunications industry. This paper provides a product analysis of the MacBook, including the target market, branding, competition, product strategies, their effectiveness, and recommendations on areas for improvement.

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Target Market

The target market for MacBook includes young people between 18 and 34 years. The company also targets middle and upper-income customers with the capacity and willingness to pay a higher amount for a PC offering a better user experience. MacBook’s target market also includes music, media, and design experts who require specific software for their work. MacBooks are also designed to target business people who are highly fascinated by Apple products, such as iPhone and iPad users. The target market is also characterized by students who require fast computers to complete assignments and attend online classes. The company designs each MacBook based on the specific needs and preferences of the targeted market to create maximum customer satisfaction.

Branding and Strategic Positioning

Apple’s branding strategy emphasizes customer emotions because the brand personality is about regained liberty, imagination, lifestyle, passion, innovation, aspirations, hopes, and dreams (Nagamia, 2015). The brand also focuses on enhancing simplicity in the use of electronics and creating meaningful connections with the people around a company’s environment. The company’s brand positioning of the MacBook laptops and PCs includes emphasizing distinctive and unique features that competitors have not focused on, a unique value proposition, the appropriateness to primary markets, the ability to boost or support customers’ needs, and enhancing sustainability. Therefore, the company uses a unique brand positioning statement that informs customers of the company’s purpose, including the provision of reliable and unique software that cannot be compared to any other in the market. The company also mentions its favorable prices that are aimed at catering to the needs of creative and bright customers.

Apple’s brand has a major influence on the laptops and PC category because it dictates the appropriate pricing required to create a competitive advantage. The company uses price-premium to sustain the brand in various electronic categories. Other laptops and PC vendors with weak brand equity struggle to maintain competitive advantage due to poor supply chain management and inability to keep up with the unique technology and designs introduced by Apple Inc., thus enabling Apple to continue making advances in the product category by creating products with hardware and software that competitors have not yet utilized. Apple also maintains competitiveness by manufacturing its operating licenses, thus creating a cost advantage.

Competition and Overall Marketing Environment

The electronics market includes many players, hence creating stiff competition for Apple Inc. The main competitors producing products similar to MacBook are ASUS, Dell, Lenovo, and HP. However, Apple Inc. has maintained a competitive advantage by creating unique, high-quality products and maintaining a reputation of quality consistency. Therefore, the only way a competitor can beat Apple Inc. in the market is by introducing better products to make Apple customers change their perspective on Apple products. Competitors also require thorough marketing to enhance their customer base and gain a competitive advantage over Apple Inc. The company’s general marketing objectives focus on maximizing the acquired market share and being in a position to eliminate competitors. This enables the company to increase sales and reach a large customer base in the global and local markets. The company also distributes its products to different retail stores to sell them and increase visibility to target customers. The company also leverages the Internet to enhance brand awareness and introduce new products.

Apple In. Has divided its markets based on the location of the regions it operates in. It then charges different prices in every region based on the region’s economic conditions. For instance, the prices set for Apple products in developing countries are not similar to those charged in developed countries. The price discrimination strategy has played a significant role in helping the company sustain sales in different countries worldwide. According to Verboven (2018), price discrimination includes indirect and direct price discrimination, where indirect discrimination uses customers’ unobservable attributes such as demands and preferences, and direct discrimination includes giving customers different prices based on observable features such as age, geographical location, and gender. Apple Inc. uses a blend of direct and indirect discrimination to set the prices of different products in local and global markets.

Product strategies used to achieve business success and recommended areas of improvement

Apple products have unique features, including high quality and user-friendliness. The company also occasionally improves its products to meet upcoming customers’ needs and preferences and maintains its position among the best brands in the global telecommunications sector. The main product categories for MacBook are software, channels, and design (Stratton, 2020). Since its founding, the company has specialized in creating an operating system that defines the experience of MacBook users. The company uses vertical integration to develop its unique operating system, thus giving it total autonomy from other software providers. The company also uses a unique design ethos to enhance the functionality of the MacBook and meet specific customer needs and preferences. The company has also invested a lot of money in MacBook designs, both in terms of hardware and software. The company invests in research and development to develop and maintain creative ideas implemented to improve product design.

The product strategies discussed above will yield success for Apple Inc. because customers focus on reliable software, good design, and functionality when looking for a laptop or PC. Therefore, the unique design of Apple PC will attract customers and maintain customer loyalty because customers will be pleased with the different designs they can choose from. Having reliable software also enhances the functionality of the Apple MacBook, thus attracting many customers. However, the company should consider conducting regular market research to understand customer needs and preferences changes to create long-term success. The company should also consider testing its products in different markets to assess the demand for MacBooks with specific features in various markets for effective positioning and price discrimination. The company may also create long-term success by customizing the MacBook series based on the target market and advertising the customized PCs to the target market rather than generalizing the market. For instance, if the MacBook is designed for students and has a smaller internal hardware space, the company should mention that it is suitable for students to prevent other professionals who may not know how to access specifications from choosing the best PC for their work.

References

Nagamia, N. K. (2015). Apple Inc. marketing analysis case study. MacEwan University Student eJournal, 2(1). https://doi.org/10.31542/j.muse.216

Stratton, C. (2020). Platform politics: Software as a strategy in Apple’s platform ecosystem. First Monday. https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v25i2.9948

Verboven, F. (2018). Price discrimination (Empirical studies). The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 10683-10687. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_2256

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Question

In this assignment, you will analyze how your chosen company maximizes the branding of its product or service and how it positions the product in the marketplace with its competition.