Strategic Marketing Plan For Apple iWatch

Question

Task: Write a report exploring the strategic marking plan for Apple iWatch.

Answer

Introduction
The Apple Inc is selected to explore the strategic marketing plan which is a technology-based company and is best known for its marketing and production of iPhones, iPads, MacBook and iWatch. As opined by Singh (2019, p. 406), the success of the company is based on its product quality and satisfying the customer needs. Thus, the present study focuses on the reasons for which the company should look forward to concentrating on the fashion business and the strategic marketing plan of Apple iWatch in the Australian business market.

Current situation analysis
Analysis of 3 C’s Model
 Company analysis: As stated by Lockamy (2017, p. 180), the major competitors of the company like Facebook, Google and Amazon are all probing into implementing technological advancements in their existing systems, for gaining a competitive edge. Apple Inc., on the other hand, aims to make their brand render an ‘everyday vision’, getting personally involved in the lives of the customers, making their lives better. Think Different is the advertising slogan of Apple Inc and possesses the vision to be the world’s best customer centric company. For achieving this vision of strategic marketing plan, probing into the fashion industry and designing the watch, complete with all the technological advancements as well as allowing the customers to keep a track of their health appears to be the best option.

Customer analysis
As observed by Dubey (2019, p. 62), 42% of the consumer youth population prefers wearing stylish outfits and watches on an ‘everyday’ basis and 76% of the population are interested in availing health gadgets on a daily basis, in an effort to stay healthy Apple. Besides this, the health consciousness of the general Australian population ensures popularity of the smart watches launched by Apple and thus, justifies why Apple should look in for expansion into the fashion market of Australia, with the new smart watches. 

Competitor analysis
It is noted in the strategic marketing plan, Australia does not have any indigenous smartwatch manufacturing company and hence, some of the best smart watch companies are Samsung, Fitbit, Fossil Sport Review, Huawei that makes watches which compete with the iWatch six series are ruling the market (Yu and Liu, 2019, p. 78). The look and stylish appeal of the smart watch is sure to win the appraisal from the young fashion enthusiasts and thus, is another reason why Apple should probe into the fashion industry with its latest launch of smart watch series 6, in Australian market.

Business Environmental analysis
External environmental analysis (PEST) for building strategic marketing plan
Politico- Legal: Australia maintains close association with the USA and has a stable and safe political environment, which provides a suitable condition for Apple Inc to flourish in the market. As argued by Kreutzer (2019, p. 227), Australia has fair trading, consumer and competition laws which ensure its quality business trading with the USA and other countries. The lenient trading policies and ease of receiving trade licenses would benefit Apple and help them in functioning in Australia.

Economic: According to the studies of Rahman, (2019) considered in the context of strategic marketing plan, Australia is the 13th largest economy of the world with a GDP rate of 9.6% as compared to the USA which is 17%. The country imports more than US$ 222 billion worth of products such as electronics equipment, machinery, oil, metals, medical apparatus and much more that makes the favourable situation for Apple to flourish it's iWatch market in Australia. Though the growth rate of GDP in Australia is less than that of USA, the Australian market appears to be apparently promising for the Apple to launch its watch series 6 in this market.

Social: Like USA, a large proportion of the Australian population are health conscious and loves utilizing gadgets, which help them, keep a track of their activities as well as monitor their health conditions. This promising advantage mentioned in the strategic marketing plan makes it suitable for companies like Apple to probe into the fashion products and launch the watch series 6 in the Australian market. Since around 85% of the Australian youth and millennial population are available over digital media platforms, so reaching out to them is also an easy task, which would enormously benefit Apple. 

Technological: Australia is one of the technologically advanced countries of the world with $63 to $65 billion of profit in technological investments, aiming for a disruptive innovation and probing into the fashion genre, in the Australian market, would prove to be beneficial for Apple Inc (Pegan et al., 2020). Like USA, almost 87% of the millennial population are tech-savvy in Australia, thus giving Apple a wide range of target audience to attract.

Internal environmental analysis (SWOT) for strategic marketing plan
(for the written SWOT table, refer to appendix 1)

Table 1: SWOT analysis of iWatch
Source: (Developed by the learner)

Goals and SMART marketing objective
Goals

• Expansion of the market share by 20% in Australia within 3 years.
• Increasing the volume of sales by 10% in Australian market within 2 years.

SMART marketing objective for strategic marketing plan

• Increasing the customer counts by 5% for iWatch in Australia within 2021

As evidenced by ?oki? (2016, p. 85), since the company aims to establish itself in the Australian market pretty soon and by considerable measures, catering to the demands of the customers, while utilizing the standardization principles of the company, by probing into the fashion industry, through the launch of Smart watches series 6, appears to be the most favourable option for Apple Inc.

Strategic marketing plan (Refer to appendix 3, for a detailed customer profile)
Segmentation 

• Demographics: To understand the occupation and income level of the customer, the Apple watch targets the high-income earners with having a professional occupation and also selects the youth population within Australia. 
• Behavioural: To understand the degree of loyalty and the benefits sought, Apple watch targets the very loyal, techsavvy, young customers who are self-expressive along with determined personality and are new or potential users within Australia. 
• Psychographic: To understand the lifestyle and social class, the Apple watch targets the upper-class individuals who are aspirants and explorers within Australia. 

Targeting
The first potential target customers of Apple watches outlined in this strategic marketing plan report are going to be regular smartwatch users of Australia and the specific exclusive features of the watches will be directed to the heavily tech savvy individuals and easy adopters. As stated by Lancaster and Massingham (2017, p. 5), with taking in account the prices that is $350 and characteristics of the watches, the identification of the customer will be a well driven, devoted technological customer with a high-income level. Thus, the consumers who are appreciators of innovation, quality, luxury watches and no budget barriers are the target customers of Apple watches in Australia.

Positioning 
The brand reflects their core beliefs through the innovation, imagination and design of their iWatch with providing the emotional branding which is felt by the mind and heart of the customers. Hence, the positioning of the Apple watches in Australia strongly reflects their emotional connection and loyalty with the customers through their customer experience, product quality and promotional strategies (Tozanl? et al., 2020, p. 13)

Core marketing strategies
The 4 P’s of marketing mix of the apple watches for strategic marketing plan are: (for detailed 4P’s, refer to appendix 2)

Table 2: 4Ps of marketing for Smart watches series 6, by Apple Inc
(Source: Created by the author)

CSR value propositions
As opined by David et al., (2016, p. 348), Apple Inc is very much committed to the high stature of social responsibility across its supply chain network. The company, as a part of its CSR Initiatives, can donate a part of its profit for the conservation of the Australian environment, in collaboration with an NGO involved in the same work. This would enhance the brand image and would allow the company to establish themselves on favourable grounds in the country.

Evaluation of Standardization vs. adaptation that Apple Inc. will have to deliberate on, for expanding into Australian market segment
Adaptation in strategic marketing plan refers to the phenomenon wherein the company aligns its strategies with the demands and likings of the customers in a particular market segment, owing to lot of differences in the cultural characteristics of the population in which the company aims to expand or owing to the higher bargaining power of the customers in the market segment, for the concerned company. On the other hand, standardization refers to the phenomenon wherein the company adopts the ‘one size fits all’ approach, without any customization considerations for their customers. Though Apple Inc. follows the ‘one size fits all’ approach usually, in case of probing into a different genre in a new market for the first time, that is fashion genre in the Australian market, the company will make use of the marketing mix approach, to cater to the demands and needs of the customers. However, the extent of adaptation will not be much, since the pricing strategy and the technologies to be incorporated in the watch will be decided by the management of Apple Inc., through their global management strategies only and the demands of the customers in the Australian market segment will play negligible role in the same.

Conclusion
The present study probes into the reason why Apple should choose to venture in the fashion segment in Australian market and build strategic marketing plan. The less competition in this genre, increased health consciousness of the Australian population, tech savvy customers who wish to avail products that help them monitor their health as well as demands of the youth to use stylish watches in their everyday life, makes this sector attractive for venturing. Apple Inc would presumably be able to earn huge revenue on their business pan of launching smart watch series 6 in the Australian market segment.

References
David, M.E., David, F.R. and David, F.R., 2017. The quantitative strategic planning matrix: a new marketing tool. Journal of strategic Marketing, 25(4), pp.342-352.

?oki?, I., 2016. Planning of integrated marketing communication as part of a strategic marketing plan. AnaliEkonomskogfakulteta u Subotici, (36), pp.79-93.

Dubey, J.K., 2019. Strategic marketing plan of library and information services and products for iit libraries in India. Journal of Library and Information Communication Technology, 8(2), pp.54-68.

Kreutzer, R.T., 2019. Strategic and Operational Marketing Plan. In Toolbox for Marketing and Management (pp. 225-229). Springer, Cham.

Lancaster, G. and Massingham, L., 2017. The development of a strategic approach to marketing: Its culture; internal macro-and external micro-environmental issues. In Essentials of Marketing Management (pp. 1-32). Routledge.

Lockamy III, A., 2017, July. An examination of external risk factors in Apple Inc.’s supply chain. In Supply Chain Forum: An International Journal (Vol. 18, No. 3, pp. 177-188). Taylor & Francis.

Pegan, G., Vianelli, D. and de Luca, P., 2020. International Marketing Strategy. International Series in Advanced Management Studies.

Rahman, J., 2019. Comparing Australian and United States Productivity. Available at: https://treasury.gov.au/sites/default/files/2019-03/04_comparing_productivity.pdf [Accessed 13 Apr. 2020].

Singh, H., 2019. The apple of your eye: marketing in aesthetics. Journal of Aesthetic Nursing, 8(8), pp.406-407.

Slaughter, C., 2016. The Shift to Digital: A Strategic Marketing Plan for a Traditional Auto Group’s Digital Transformation.

Tozanl?, Ö., Kongar, E. and Gupta, S.M., 2020. Trade-in-to-upgrade as a marketing strategy in disassembly-to-order systems at the edge of blockchain technology. International Journal of Production Research, pp.1-18.

Yu, J.Y. and Liu, L., 2019. The Prospect and Analysis of Nanogenerator for Wearable Devices. In Advances in Body Area Networks I (pp. 75-91). Springer, Cham.

Appendix 1: SWOT analysis

Appendix 2: 4 P’s of marketing strategy
Product

• Satisfies the demand of good looking customizable smart watches along with enhancing the smart phone capabilities
• A robust construction that is made of fine metal with overall integration of hardware and software technical environment with ease of use service. 
• The USP of Apple watch will be product packaging and presentation as the company targets the customer with no budget barriers and asks for high innovative quality. 

Price

• As viewed by Slaughter (2016), the company would benefit by using price skimming strategy, entering the new market with high priced products for maximising the initial earnings from the early adopters and gradually lowering the prices.
• The price of the Apple iWatch six series is $350 in the Australian business market, and it is the only company aiming at the luxury watch segment with a strong technological background.

Place

• The company has located its stores in the major cities of Australia that are Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne and more and pays a lot more attention to the architectural designs of the stores. Apart from this the company has direct sales channels that sell the Apple watches to the end users. 
• The company also operates over the online stores in Australia with providing the whole product portfolio through their great logistic networks that enables the Australian consumer for buying online and receiving the commodity within a short time period.

Promotions 

• The company invests huge finance in promoting their products through specialised magazines, signing agreements with the other companies like Nike fitness trackers, mobile advertisements and also celebrity endorsement which are also prevalent in Australia. The company can also look for promotion utilizing the social media, to target the youth of the country effectively. Since the target customers will be youth, digital marketing will serve as an important channel for reaching out to the customers. Apple does not utilize social medias its channel of advertising but it can utilize other channels like the ads between the video games, YouTube and other such channels, to introduce and advertise their products ,so that the customers can be motivated to buy them

Appendix 3: Customer Profile