Unit 3. Introduction to marketing. Assignment 2
‘A’ Listed Marketers. Apple.
P3
How Apple uses marketing research
Apple is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, that designs,
develops, and sells consumer electronics, computer software, and online services. Apple is well known for its
size and revenues. Apple is the world's largest information technology company by revenue and in August
2018, Apple became the first public U.S. company to be valued at over $1 trillion. The company employs
123,000 full-time employees and maintains 504 retail stores in 24 countries as of 2018.
Marketing plan
A marketing plan is a report that outlines your marketing strategy for the coming year, quarter or
month. Typically, a marketing plan will include: An overview of your business’s marketing and advertising
goals, a description of your business’s current marketing position, a timeline of when tasks within your
strategy will be completed, key performance indicators you will be tracking and a description of your
business’s target market and customer needs. The marketing plan for Apple has been created by its Marketing
team led by the senior vice President of the department and its purpose is to set the objectives and the
strategies for making all Apple products successful around the world.
Quantitative market research
Quantitative research is purely about numbers, digits or figures. It is closed questions with pre-determined
answers to gather data that is easy to analysis and draw conclusions from. One example for Apple’s
phenomenally successful digital music player; the iPod. When Apple launched the iPod in October 2001, it was
not the first entrant into the digital music player business. But Apple was the first to get it right by
understanding the crucial design for a portable digital music player. Apple’s quantitative research of closed
questions surveying uncovered the key insights that a large percentage of people want to take all of their
music with them and also want their personal music players to be easily portable. This data was discovered
from various surveys asking consumers about what features they wanted on a portable music player. These
insights then led to two key design goals; make it as small as possible and design it to hold thousands of songs.
Then using this data and their unique Apple design aesthetics they manufactured the hugely successful iPod.
This research activity leads to Apple being able to develop their marketing plan because the results they get
from these simple quantitative market researching methods allows them to streamline their more detailed
research such as their qualitative market research. For example they can survey how many people use their
products with simple closed questions and then use these statistics to ask the correct people more detailed
questions in their qualitative surveys.
Qualitative market research
Qualitative research doesn’t look for the precision of “yes” or “no” answers that quantitative research does.
Instead, it asks people what motivates their decisions in the first place. Qualitative research goes into the
reasons why people gave the answers they did for the quantitative research. If the quantitative research
produced a majority of people saying “no” in a survey, then any qualitative research will likely show that the
“no” answer is just one part of the story. People are complex in their decision making, and the chances are
that there’s a lot of grey area information behind those black-and-white quantitative answers. Apple has been
wise enough to listen to its consumers’ need and In May 2011, the company launched Apple Customer Pulse, a
qualitative market research group that reached out to customers via email with an online survey. These
surveys gathered in depth answers from consumers with their opinions on Apple’s existing products and their
desires for Apple’s future products. While that research has since ended, sources say it led to design
modifications such as creating Apple products with larger screens for a better video playback experience.
Qualitative market research allows Apple to develop their market plan because this data is extremely useful
for loads of factors such as how effective their advertising is and how it could be more effective or how they
could add new features to their products or how they could improve any existing product features.
‘A’ Listed Marketers. Apple.
P3
How Apple uses marketing research
Apple is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, that designs,
develops, and sells consumer electronics, computer software, and online services. Apple is well known for its
size and revenues. Apple is the world's largest information technology company by revenue and in August
2018, Apple became the first public U.S. company to be valued at over $1 trillion. The company employs
123,000 full-time employees and maintains 504 retail stores in 24 countries as of 2018.
Marketing plan
A marketing plan is a report that outlines your marketing strategy for the coming year, quarter or
month. Typically, a marketing plan will include: An overview of your business’s marketing and advertising
goals, a description of your business’s current marketing position, a timeline of when tasks within your
strategy will be completed, key performance indicators you will be tracking and a description of your
business’s target market and customer needs. The marketing plan for Apple has been created by its Marketing
team led by the senior vice President of the department and its purpose is to set the objectives and the
strategies for making all Apple products successful around the world.
Quantitative market research
Quantitative research is purely about numbers, digits or figures. It is closed questions with pre-determined
answers to gather data that is easy to analysis and draw conclusions from. One example for Apple’s
phenomenally successful digital music player; the iPod. When Apple launched the iPod in October 2001, it was
not the first entrant into the digital music player business. But Apple was the first to get it right by
understanding the crucial design for a portable digital music player. Apple’s quantitative research of closed
questions surveying uncovered the key insights that a large percentage of people want to take all of their
music with them and also want their personal music players to be easily portable. This data was discovered
from various surveys asking consumers about what features they wanted on a portable music player. These
insights then led to two key design goals; make it as small as possible and design it to hold thousands of songs.
Then using this data and their unique Apple design aesthetics they manufactured the hugely successful iPod.
This research activity leads to Apple being able to develop their marketing plan because the results they get
from these simple quantitative market researching methods allows them to streamline their more detailed
research such as their qualitative market research. For example they can survey how many people use their
products with simple closed questions and then use these statistics to ask the correct people more detailed
questions in their qualitative surveys.
Qualitative market research
Qualitative research doesn’t look for the precision of “yes” or “no” answers that quantitative research does.
Instead, it asks people what motivates their decisions in the first place. Qualitative research goes into the
reasons why people gave the answers they did for the quantitative research. If the quantitative research
produced a majority of people saying “no” in a survey, then any qualitative research will likely show that the
“no” answer is just one part of the story. People are complex in their decision making, and the chances are
that there’s a lot of grey area information behind those black-and-white quantitative answers. Apple has been
wise enough to listen to its consumers’ need and In May 2011, the company launched Apple Customer Pulse, a
qualitative market research group that reached out to customers via email with an online survey. These
surveys gathered in depth answers from consumers with their opinions on Apple’s existing products and their
desires for Apple’s future products. While that research has since ended, sources say it led to design
modifications such as creating Apple products with larger screens for a better video playback experience.
Qualitative market research allows Apple to develop their market plan because this data is extremely useful
for loads of factors such as how effective their advertising is and how it could be more effective or how they
could add new features to their products or how they could improve any existing product features.
