Advertising & Sales

Promotion
Apple iPod

Prof. Anil Vashisht

Submitted by:

 Rohan Chowdhry
 Gautam Vatsa
 Advertising & Sales Promotion

Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................3
IMC Tools used by Apple iPod.....................................................................................................................4
Advertising...............................................................................................................................................4
Sales Promotion.......................................................................................................................................5
Public Relations.......................................................................................................................................6
iPod – Advertising Agency...........................................................................................................................6
Source Message and Channel Factors.........................................................................................................8
Source......................................................................................................................................................8
Message..................................................................................................................................................8
Advertising Objectives and Budget..............................................................................................................9
Objectives..............................................................................................................................................10
Creative Aspect..........................................................................................................................................10
Media Strategies........................................................................................................................................11
Social & Ethical Issues................................................................................................................................13
References.................................................................................................................................................14

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Introduction
The iPod is a portable media player designed and marketed by Apple and launched on October 23, 2001.
As of June 2010, the product line-up includes the hard drive-based iPod Classic, the touch screen iPod
Touch, the video-capable iPod Nano, and the compact iPod Shuffle. Former iPod models include the iPod
Mini and the spin-off iPod Photo (since reintegrated into the main iPod Classic line). iPod Classic models
store media on an internal hard drive; while all other models use flash memory to enable their smaller
size (the discontinued Mini used a Microdrive miniature hard drive). As with many other digital music
players, iPods can also serve as external data storage devices. Storage capacity varies by model, ranging
from 2 GB for the iPod Shuffle to 160 GB for the iPod Classic.

The iPod branding is also used for the media player applications included with the iPhone and iPad; the
iPhone version is essentially a combination of the Music and Videos apps on the iPod Touch. Both
devices can therefore function as iPods, but they are generally treated as separate products.

The iPod presents, besides an interesting technical evolution, an original and innovative way of
promoting and advertising, this differs in style and slogans from the first ads of the first generation of
iPods, to the most recent iPod video advertising campaigns.

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IMC Tools used by Apple iPod

Advertising
Apple advertised extensively for iPod. Just when iPod was launched, an introductory campaign which
would explain an unfamiliar product was needed. For this, apple thought a traditional campaign was
preferable. Hence, the first iPod's commercial showed a man listening to the songs on his iPod and
dancing.

Apple has used a variety of advertising campaigns to promote its iPod portable digital media player. The
campaigns include television commercials, print ads, posters in public places, and wrap advertising
campaigns. These advertising techniques are unified by a distinctive, consistent style that differs from
Apple's other ads.

In 2003, the new advertising campaign that Apple introduced was due to the conjunction with the
launch of the iTunes music store. The campaign concentrated mostly on the interpretation of popular
songs by different persons wearing iPods. This campaign was a big hit, due to the fact that it was based
on famous pop, rock and hip hop songs, belonging to artists such as Eminem or Pink.

The more notable commercials and print advertising feature dark silhouetted characters against bright-
colored backgrounds. The silhouettes are usually dancing, and in television commercials are backed by
up-beat music. The silhouettes are also usually holding iPods and listening to them with Apple's supplied
earphones. These appear in white, so that they stand out against the colored background and black
silhouettes. Apple changes the style of these commercials often depending on the song's theme or
genre.

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Sales Promotion
Apple is known for its arrogance towards its pricing strategies. It has always delivered premium quality
product for a premium price. So too is the case with the iPod, since Apple as a brand is very superior and
has a loyal consumer base, any product it launches generates instant acclaim due to excellent marketing
campaigns by Apple which continues to create curiosity in the consumers.

The major Promotional activity which the iPod offers is the Apple’s Annual “Free iPod With Every Mac
for Students” Promotion. During this promotion, which is active through September 7 th 2010, the
customer gets a free 8GB iPod Touch or $199 off any iPod model via mail in rebate with a qualifying Mac
purchase.

The Apple store also offers free engraving and gift wrapping facilities to iPod customers who purchase
the aforementioned product from their online store. The Messages engraved on iPod classic and iPod
touch are limited to 2 lines, 29 characters each; on iPod Nano, 2 lines, 29 characters each; on iPod
shuffle, 2 lines, 14 characters.

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Public Relations
Apple made the iPod huge because of its marketing techniques; however, it was also a success because
it was their main focus for many years. They made people feel as if the iPod was a perfect piece of
machinery through how much time they spent on it and through the customer service they provided for
it. In essence Apple created a market environment where it is almost impossible to beat or catch up to
the iPod. The iPod is the MP3 player market. If you compare the iPod to Creative’s version of it, which is
called the Zen or Microsoft’s version, which is called the Zune, the number of units sold just don’t
compare, nor do features, nor does support, or style, or even ease of use.

People love new and flashy products, and Apple did well to make sure they always stayed ahead of the
game by releasing new hardware, software, or better and newer applications for the iPod.

There is an annual conference held by Apple Inc. where different new versions of Apple products are
unveiled. This is a form of Public Relationship meeting with its consumers. Moreover, the much
anticipated products are shown during the Macworld and therefore, the attendance is quite high. Apple
as a brand has many loyal customers, and it also maintains a relationship with them through CRM. Apple
sends weekly newsletters to subscribers related to their products.

iPod – Advertising Agency

TBWA is one of the top ten US-based agency networks made up of 258 full service agencies around the
world with expertise in all of the disciplines required for the positioning, launching and long-term
management of brands.

TBWA\Chiat\Day which is responsible for Apple’s advertising is the American division of the advertising
agency TBWA Worldwide. Created in the 1993 merger of TBWA and Chiat/Day, the agency operates
offices in Los Angeles, New York City and Nashville. Prior to the merger, Chiat/Day created
internationally notable advertising, including “1984” for Apple Inc. that introduced the Macintosh
computer.

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In the United States, TBWA operates through TBWA\Chiat\Day, with offices in Los Angeles and New
York. In other parts of the world the company also operates under a mixed brand name such as TBWA
Hunt Lascaris, a highly awarded agency based in South Africa, TBWA\CONCEPT UNIT, West Africa's most
awarded creative agency, and TBWA\RAAD an emerging operation that spans the Middle East and North
Africa.

In the mid-1990s TBWA began expanding globally spreading rapidly. It began acquiring global accounts
such as Master Foods that helped strengthen the breadth and depth of its offering, so much so that in
2004 it was named by Advertising Age as Global Agency Network of the Year. In 2010, it was named by
Advertising Agency as Global Agency Network of the Decade.

Services include:

Advertising and Brand Marketing Strategy Services:

 Brand Strategy Development

 Account Management and Brand Stewardship
 Advertising Creative Development
 Connections Planning (Holistic Communications Planning and Integration)
 New Product Development
 Regional and Promotional Advertising (and Micro-Marketing)
 B2B Communications
 Broadcast Studio (TV and Radio) and Editing
 Pre-Press Studio
 Direct/Relationship Marketing Strategy
 Interactive/Digital Strategy
 Interactive/Digital Creative Production
 Interactive Marketing
 Web Development
 Emerging Channels (digital indoor and outdoor displays, kiosks, iTV and mobile phones)
 Planning and Buying of Interactive Media

TBWA has 267 offices in 77 countries and approximately 12,000 employees worldwide.

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Source Message and Channel Factors

Source
Apple uses its Co-Founder Steve Jobs to promote iPod’s as and when they release. He gets on stage and
as keynote speaker awes the crowd with a new style, feature or design that always seems to capture the
viewers attention making them hang on his every word.

Apple uses its Co-founder thus, due to:

 Similarity: The resemblance between the source and recipient is clear; Steve Jobs is the man
who will supply you with the latest products that are in vogue.
 Familiarity: People have continuous and prolonged exposure to the Co-Founder, as he is cultural
icon, and his famous rivalry with Bill gates is always the talk of the town.
 Likeability: Even though many critics claim that Steve Jobs is one of the most egotistical man in
Silicon Valley, His personality on and off stage always entertains the audience.

Message
When you mention MP3 Player, the first thing that comes to most people’s minds is iPod. The words
MP3 Player and iPod are almost synonymous in today’s society. The iPod has revolutionized the MP3
Player market since its initial release and has continued to do so in following releases.

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A Normal iPod commercial will have a bunch of people dancing on a colored background. There are
women and men, but you don’t know anything else about them. This advertisement is ingenious for
many reasons. For one, you don’t know where these people are. They could be anywhere in the world.
Secondly, you don’t know who they are or what they do for a living. They can be anyone. All you know is
that they are enjoying the music and having a good time. This is what makes that commercial so great
and such an excellent idea. It allows anyone in the world to be that person.

Each iPod uses a unique tagline that suits the needs of the future consumer, for example the new Apple
iPhone 4 uses the message. “This Changes Everything. Again” since the last iPhone (2G & 3G) changed
the whole mobile arena making mobile giants like Nokia, Samsung and Sonyericsson jump through
hoops to rival the iPhone.

iPod Classic “Your Top 40,000” Since it can hold that many number of songs, the product has specifically
been aimed to target the music enthusiastic who see the iPod only as a Mass Storage Portable Media
device.

iPod Touch “The Funnest Phone Ever” This iPod is more than an mp3 player, it can turn into a gaming
device, movie player and document reader

iPod Nano “nano shoots video” This versatile small player now has the capability to shoot videos, giving
more reason to choose this device than other small media players

Advertising Objectives and Budget

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Apple Computer spent $287 million on advertising in its last fiscal year, up nearly 40 percent from the
$206 million it spent a year earlier. And the company spent $193 million in the year before that,
according to its annual report.

The ad spending, though significant, is far less than the billions of dollars spent each year by the very
largest advertisers--companies such as consumer products giant Procter & Gamble and automakers such
as General Motors and Ford.

And, though its spending is a lot for a tech company, Apple has also seen a significant spike in its sales,
particularly the heavily marketed iPod music player. The company sold $4.5 billion worth of the players
in its fiscal year, a more than threefold increase over the prior year.

Objectives
An iPod only strives to make the device and its owner look cooler, in a sense that the person now
belongs to an elite club, because he bought a player that is expensive than the rest but also comes with
a recognition.

The iPod ads begin to formulate a theme which provides insight into Apple’s psychographic profile of a
typical consumer. The dancing loner, stylish, lost in her own world, white earbuds tucked safely in,
grooving against bursts of vivid color. These ads transmit a definite sense that there is a personality
being promoted, a way of being as much as a thing to buy. Further, the soundtrack on your own iPod
will be better than anyone else’s (certainly better than non-iPod users), and besides, whether it is or not,
you are in control of your own destiny; no one else is telling you what to do. These ads have the effect
of creating desire, awareness, brand loyalty, and oddly, satisfaction.

Creative Aspect
Apple understood from the beginning the powerful new communication channels that were available to
them pursuant to their primary segment’s online habits, because they made sure that everything they

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needed to do to fully experience iPod, could be done online. Few would have predicted just a few years
ago, that the traditional modes of music delivery such as CDs, albums, and tapes, would soon be dead.

So what did Apple do differently to achieve this success, while everyone else was making an MP3 player
that was better/cheaper/faster, Apple was making electronic jewelry that also played MP3’s. Never
focusing on price, they brought to market more value, more style, and new ways of interacting with
digital media.

The creativity of the iPod lies in the fact that, Apple used the influence of one group to influence the
next, in a linear fashion. In other words when the product was being targeted toward innovators, the
goal was for the innovators (with a little help from Apple’s advertising, communications, and
promotions) to influence the early adopters. Similarly, the popularity among early adopters was
leveraged toward the early and late majorities, until we arrive at today, when nearly everyone either
has one, wants one, or knows someone who has one.

Media Strategies
Apple’s segmentation strategy focused on narrow markets and a unique niche because in 2001 it was
early adopters who might be interested in MP3 players. However iPod also created a whole industry,
which must now be characterized as having a broad scope, simply because of its ubiquitous presence. It
may be a unique niche—it certainly was at the time—because they intentionally did not go for cost

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leadership. In fact, high price was and is a feature of the product; that it remains more expensive than
the rest hammers home the message that it contains some magic the others lack.

Looking at the market structure, we see a clustered market. There are consumers who want technical
features and there are people who want to be part of the iPod scene and there are people who don’t
want to spend a lot of money, but still want an iPod. There’s an entire market of athletes and runners
who want a lightweight player that hold just enough songs and battery power to get them through their
workout. Overlaying this segmentation strategy is an interesting phenomenon. Even though Apple is
pursuing a segmentation strategy with iPod, they nonetheless strictly limit the choice of iPod products
available, generally to three. This lack of choice is somewhat counterintuitive to the generally accepted
notion that American consumers desire a lot of choice, usually a vertical attribute, the more choice the
better.

It is clear today that Apple is marketing different products to different groups of people: the flagship
iPod video which is expensive, the Nano which is midrange and a shuffle which is inexpensive and small.
This segmentation strategy appears to make sense, since the market is heterogeneous, the segments
are identifiable and they are divisible.

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Social & Ethical Issues

iPod (PRODUCT) RED Special Edition iPod models and iTunes Gift Cards, and Apple gives a portion of the
purchase price to the Global Fund to fight AIDS in Africa.

According to the iPod site, More than 4,100 people die every day from AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, and
almost 2,000 children are infected with HIV each day. (PRODUCT) RED works with companies, like Apple,
to create (PRODUCT) RED branded products and direct up to 50 percent of gross profits from the sale of
those products to the Global Fund to help fund AIDS programs in Africa. Since its introduction,
(PRODUCT) RED has generated more than $130 million for the Global Fund.

Product Red is a brand licensed to partner companies such as American Express, Apple Inc., Starbucks,
Converse, Motorola, Gap, Emporio Armani, Hallmark, Microsoft, and Dell.

Product Red states that its main principles are:

 To expand opportunities for the people in the continent of Africa.

 To respect its employees and ask its partners to do the same with their employees and the
people who help make their products or deliver their services.
 To promote the fight against HIV/AIDS in the workplace.
 To see the power of a community mobilized for hope, health and progress.
 To ask its partners to uphold the same principles.\

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References
iPod: The Marketing of an Idea, University of St. Thomas - Marketing 300

http://ibummed.com/essays-and-reports/imc-campaign-of-apple/

http://www.besttechie.net/2008/03/01/the-ipod-success-thank-the-marketing-department/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_jobs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_strategy

http://www.scribd.com/doc/2648710/iPod-The-Marketing-of-an-Idea

http://news.cnet.com/Apple-spends-a-bundle-on-iPod-ads/2100-1047_3-5978598.html

http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/Integrated_Marketing_Communications_-
_5_Primary_Communication_Tools.html

http://www.notebooks.com/2010/06/30/ultimate-list-of-apple-back-to-school-promotions-how-to-
save-2009-in-2010/

http://www.marketingminds.com.au/branding/apple_branding_strategy.html

http://www.apple.com/ipod/red/

http://www.apple.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_Red

http://www.icmrindia.org/casestudies/catalogue/Marketing/Apple%20iPod's%20Promotional%20and
%20Positioning%20Strategies-Marketing%20Case%20Study.htm

http://www.google.co.in/images?
q=ipod+nike+logo&um=1&hl=en&safe=off&tbs=isch:1&ei=57hATJiGAczQcZ_vvJwP&sa=N&start=36&nds
p=18

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