Assignment 3
What lessons can other companies learn from Apple’s strategies over the year?
Introduction
Since the return of Steve Jobs to Apple Incorporation, the company regains its influence and expands to embrace millions of customers worldwide with its increasing brand value of USD $98.3 billion (Mourdoukoutas, 2013). In global market nowadays, it is rare for other companies to imitate Apple’s influencing brand with high customer loyalty. Most Apple product users call themselves as an Apple fan rather than a customer and worship Apple brand as a religion, which shows a strong bond between customers and Apple (Milian, 2011a). Moreover, 59% iPhone owners admit blind loyalty to the brand that they exclude other brands while making purchasing decisions (Kelly, 2014). Apple’s achievement on brand building has reached a level where most companies can only dream for, but it takes more than ordinary marketing to achieve that. Apple’s success can be summarized into cult branding and product innovation.
Cult Branding
Unlike the traditional marketing which promotes products to customers, Apple’s cult brand creates its own unique customer ‘community’ to share the ideology for a better lifestyle associated with the brand and products (Schneiders, 2011). In order to attract more people to join Apple’s ‘community’, it frequently shares its company’s belief via movement marketing activities with emotional attachment to build a bond with its target market. Instead of simply telling what the company does, Apple highlights the message of what it believes in to convince the others on its vision to facilitate its users on accomplishing their goals, but not selling the products merely for profits.
For instance, its mission statement transmits the message to customers that “Apple is committed to bringing the best personal computing experience to students, educators, creative