Apple Inc. Brand Strategy Analysis

You will create an individual report based on your analysis of one of several international brand cases. Your brand case will be allocated to you by your seminartutor and may include brands (for example only) such as: Bermont Watches, Sunseeker Yachts, or De’Longhi Coffee Machines.
In your report you will undertake a critical analysis of the international brand’s historical performance. You are free to analyze the overall company’s international brand, or instead to select one of their product or service lines. Your report should be underpinned by academic theories, models and industry insights, using:
- Secondary data, tales, charts and diagrams
- At least 3 academic theories and models – applied specifically to your case
- A selection of references to academic journals, books, trade press, and websites
You are free to use whatever format and subheadings you wish within your report. Also, you can include images, screen grabs, diagrams, tables, models and charts in the body of your report. Where possible, you should create your own tables and annotate models, images and diagrams.
You should attempt to arrive at your conclusions through investigating the following sources:
- Academic literature
- Corporate websites
- All forms of international marketing communications (advertising, marketing; public relations; sponsorship; endorsements; events)
- Context and positioning of the media where the branded communications have taken place
- Packaging, promotions, and points of purchase/interaction
- Trade press, consumer press, online forums, social media and product reviews You are free to make recommendations concerning improving the performance of the international brand, but these should be restricted to those that follow the current brand strategy.
In your report you should:
- Breakdown and analyze the international brand’s: image, identity, and personality with criticality and from several perspectives
- Remember to dedicate your discussions and analysis to the international brand over and above that of just describing the functionality and design of the product or service. Also, avoid simply writing a generic report on the history of the company
- Remember, this is a specialist module on International Brand Strategy.
Therefore, be very careful about applying generic models such as SWOT, PESTLE, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Porter’s 5 Forces, BCG Matrix, or Ansoff’s Matrix. Instead, you should look to more specialist models from branding and behavioral psychology, that you have been introduced to during the module.
You should consider:
Who are the desired target audiences and what emotional and social relationship do they have with the brand? You will be expected to define and focus on two consumer segments. There needs to be a clear definition of several unique attributes of each consumer segment. Beyond this, also offer an appreciation of how they think, feel and do – mapped specifically to the brand.
What are the key facts and pieces of information communicated by the branded product or service explicitly, implicitly, and tacitly – that give messages and meaning to the offering and that are transferred and acquired by the consumer? What is the creative approach? Consider for example the use of semiotics, colours, typography, humour, celebrity endorsement etc.
Where does the branded offering communicate these elements? What are the integrated marketing channels, and where are the touch-points and moments of truth?
What are the respective strengths and weaknesses of each of these?
Why do you feel that these audiences have been worth targeting?
Why is a branding-led approach to these activities the best way to achieve objectives, beyond other strategic business approaches?
How is effectiveness judged, and what data is used to do this?