Apple Marketing Strategy

Place

Apple sells its products and resells third-party products in most of its major markets directly to consumers and SMBs through its retail and online stores and its direct sales force. Apple has over 400 retail stores and operates in more than 10 countries. These individual retail stores are the best locations to sell the iPod Nano as 30% of total net sales is through direct distribution (Investors - Apple , 2013). The Apple retail stores have become a physically location for customers to try out new products, talk to an Apple representative in person, and gain insight on technical maintenance. These retail stores can be found at high-traffic locations in quality shopping malls and urban shopping districts. At first the Apple wanted to

Apple uses a minimum advertised price (MAP) strategy in which Apple supplements wholesale discounts to resellers with more substantial monetary incentives that are available only if those resellers advertise its products at or above a certain price (Tabini, 2013). This price strategy is effective as it allows the company to have strong control over direct competition directly with Apple’s retail stores and it ensures that no one reseller has an advantage over another. Because retailers don’t have enough of a profit margin to offer big discounts on Apple’s products, customers end up paying a price close to the manufacturer suggested retail

As more music was added to iTunes, the tagline changed from 1,000 to “10,000 Songs in Your Pocket” and eventually became “The New iPod – The Best Just Got Better.”

Aside from TV Commercials, Apple used print ads and billboards that followed the silhouette style TV commercials. Theses print ads consisted dark silhouettes against a bright colored background. The silhouettes were in the shape of people dancing while listening to a white iPod with white headphones. Some of the printed ads only had the Apple logo and iPod written on it while others had varies taglines. Billboard ads would have multiple printed ads side by side or within eyesight of each other to allow consumers to become familiar with the product as it was still new in the market at the time of release.

Current and Past