Essay on Apple Inc: Tech Giant in Fiercely Competitive Consumer Electronics Market

Introduction

Apple Inc. is an American multinational company that heavily deals in technology, innovation, and service provision to its customers. Apple's involvement in selling consumer electronics, online services, and computer software has been one of the major sectors that have boosted the company's reputation. Moreover, this has earned the company its reputation (Miguel & Casado, 2016). Apple's completion in the consumer electronics market has been one of the fierce competition in the industry due to competition from other companies that are utilizing different market segmentation, helping understand the diversity of the market and its complexity. Samsung is one of the leading companies in the global distribution and manufacturing of consumer electronics. For decades, Samsung has battled different market obstacles, and production challenges to become one of the best companies in consumer electronics manufacturing. The South Korean company operates in more than 200 companies, with its market targeting beyond Korea and the rest of Europe (Yun et al., 2019). Samsung has played a vital role in consumer electronics, to help limit the possibility of monopoly from other companies in the same industry. Therefore, the essay will critically explain the market share and the strategic plans of the two companies, and what sets them apart in the industry.

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Examination of each company's website

Apple's Website

Apple's website is one of the strongholds that the company has targeted a diverse range of consumers. Among the benefits of the company's website, is the ability to sell, and make trade-off on iPhones. Consumers owning genuine iPhones can get an upgraded model of the same brand, through trading their old or current iPhones, with a new model, which is done through an additional amount. As a result, the company's website has played a vital role in generating sales, in different regions, due to the diversity of the company's retail stores that are easily accessible via the website through physical visiting the stores.

On the contrary, Apple's website plays a vital role in offering support features to consumers. Clients are offered numerous services, a concept that helps to gain customers' trust. Apple offers the services, as one of the ways to generate income from software sales, and customer repairs, which are charged depending on the magnitude of the service. On the contrary, most of the services are freely offered to help consumers of Apple devices remain on the platform for a very long time.

Samsung Website

Samsung website is among the simple and user-friendly sites that provide an interactive interface to help collect user's data for processing. Additionally, Samsung's website plays a vital role in the marketing of the company's products. Consumers have the opportunity to receive fast hand information from the website, which includes both existing and new products. As a result, customers have the opportunity to make purchases based on the desire of the devices. Additionally, Samsung's website has been used as an information tool to help the company elongate its campaigns. Software services are offered from the website, which is global access. Unlike Apple's website, where customers have the opportunity to trade in their older phones with a new one, at an affordable price, Samsung does not incorporate this feature, but rather focus on unit selling of the devices, without trading in. Through this, the company has to make more efforts to convince consumers to try their new products. As a result, this slows the selling rate of the units.

The Message Strategies of each Organization

In business-to-business marketing, message strategy is regarded as the foundation that determines the marketing position of the firm. Through this, a message strategy dictates anything the organization does. Business owners or organizations ought to have a strong and convincing message strategy that attracts and defines the entire organization's activities and its products. A message strategy ought to consist of a definitive positioning statement with supportive claims. On the contrary, the support points should not contradict the uniqueness of the positioning statement, since they provide a concrete reason to believe the positioning statement.

Apple

As Leonardo da Vinci once said, "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication," is a statement that has been well elucidated by Apple, in keeping the company's product simple with high technology (Miguel & Casado, 2016). Apple understands the overwhelming that consumers are engulfed with, making it cumbersome for many to make the right decision. However, Apple understands that most of its consumers are not fully aware of the tech jargon, a situation that may mislead the consumers. As a result, the company opts to use simplicity for an explanation as part of their marketing strategy. Consumers are well informed before making their move, helping them to make the right choice, and embrace Apple as their brand choice.

Strategies are way through which a company or a firm tries to draw the consumers on its direction, to maximize profits. The concept of message strategies is used by the organization to speak volumes of what the company has been doing. Since 2013, Apple's strategy has been focused on maximizing revenue and assets primarily geared towards increasing sales to cate to the demanding market (Cecilio et al., 2017). As a result, Apple has not shifted its culture of leading by innovation to quench the increasing demand. The company has gradually focused on launching new features, both software and hardware component.

Apple's message strategy has widely clanged on the need for innovation, through thinking differently. In this case, Apple's brand has shifted from computer-oriented production to a dives range of products that improves the lives of its loyal consumers. Apple's products have remained to be one of the advances in the market, due to the degree of innovation, helping the company to serve a diverse market. Even though the company has received negative feedback from the naysayers, due to the low quality of the iPhone's battery, the company has remained in the competitive edge to help serve its customers and the swelling demand of Apple's products.

Samsung

Brand imaging is one of the message strategies that has been widely utilized by Samsung to help create a psychological connection between the consumer and the company's products. Samsung understands the need for innovation and the benefits of producing innovative consumer electronics. According to Cecilio et al., (2017), Samsung aims to create a cohesive psychological connection between the consumers and the products. The company has widely employed a great deal of technology on its products to help increase the pool of choice for consumers. As a result, the company has utilized this concept as a stronghold in driving the company's sales.

According to Miguel and Casado, (2016) argument, brand image plays a vital role in how consumers perceive the brand. The brand image, therefore, encompasses a diverse range of aspects such as the logo, imagery, and marketing material. Through this, it is essential for the company to maintain the consistency of its image to help with the trust of customers. As a result, Samsung has maintained a steady image brand and logo. Consumers can distinctively identity the South Korean products company from millions of other products.

Samsung has remained to be innovative, despite numerous lawsuits that affected the brand image. The company was accused of violating Intellectual Property rights (IP) through incorporating hardware design models similar to Apple's iPod and iPhone, causing the company to suffer drastically. However, despite the violation of the Intellectual Property, and the lawsuit, Samsung has remained to be on the competing edge to help consumers gain what they desire, through innovation and market segmentation.

Marcom mix

The marketing communication mix is a set of unique tools used by businesses to communicate with their prospects, consumers, and stakeholders (Hall, & Kim, 2017). Marcom mix is composed of five critical elements of marketing, which include: Direct marketing, advertising, personal selling, public relations, and sales promotion.

Apple has played a considerable though in the selling of the company's product, the various means, which are highly correlated to help reach the final consumer. In one of the areas where Apple has paid a significant consideration is on direct marketing, and advertisement. The marketing strategy is geared towards pushing for more sales to generate higher revenues. The launching of Apple's new product, especially the iPhones, is strategically conducted to help increase unit sales during the launch. On the contrary, the company's public relations team helps to create confidence about the brand, hence pushing for sales. Apple pays a create consideration for its PR department to help build a solid marketing team (Hall, & Kim, 2017).The success of Apple brand is highly linked with the culture of secrecy. The company has practiced this concept to help increase the confidentiality of its products. Apple uses this as part of the strength to lure consumers on its platform, especially during the launching of the new products.

Samsung, on the other hand, highly values the relationship created between the company and its customers. The company uses a relationship management strategy to help maintain an ongoing relationship with its consumers. Samsung has widely invested in its advertisement campaign to help create awareness. On the contrary, the company has paid a significant consideration to its Public Relations (PR) department to help increase confidentiality between the company and the consumers. One of the downsides that Apple has not fully managed to control is the sales promotion, especially in the emerging markets. The pricing of Apple's devices is slightly higher compared to Samsung. Through this, the company has widely utilized this concept to venture into the new emerging markets, with little buying power.

Comparison of the Virtual IMC Presence and Activities on Social Media

Miguel and Casado, (2016) argued that the marketing environment and promotion strategies in modern business involves the use of integrating marketing communication (IMC). The use of IMC helps to bring together multiple effective communication tools that are different to deliver a universal message and make the desired sway on consumer's behavior and perception. Both Samsung and Apple have widely utilized different platforms in helping create traffic during the product launch. One of the anticipated products on both platforms is the new launching of a brand series phone, that both companies have treated the event with the utmost respect.

Apple

Social media is one of the strongholds that Apple has widely utilized to convey the message of a brand-new product that is yet to be launched. As a result, the power of social media and the interconnection of individuals in the platform makes it suitable and cost-effective to conduct such advertisement. Through this, the company forces loyal customers to queue along with the stores before the launching of the product (Truong, et al., 2019). Additionally, Apple makes greater use of commercial advertisements to increase the awareness of the brand. The commercial advertisement is mostly aired during the product launch to help boost awareness. Additionally, the printings follow as a form of advertisement, which lasts to the end of the product's life cycle (Cecilio et al., 2017)....