Apple iPad Promotional Activity Analysis Promotional Activities

Apple iPad Promotional Activity Analysis

Promotional activities are extremely important in terms of how a company gains and maintains customer traffic. The use of promotional tactics have the capacity to make or break a company, along with being a driving force in placing a company on the map in terms of competing industries. Apple is a company that has utilized clever and timely promotions for its products that have allowed Apple products to become the standard in terms of high quality and recognition within the technology industry. Such vital promotional activity can be seen more specifically in Apple's work with their iPad campaign. In understanding the campaign fully in terms of its reach, frequency, message, target, etc. one can better gauge the overall success of the campaign in order to understand if Apple's promotional tactics have paid off in the long-run.

Promotional Goals

In viewing the promotional goals of Apple in marketing the iPad, one can note the reach, frequency, message and target audience for the product at hand within the market. Before the iPad, the industry had never before seen such hype arise around a single product. Many have noted that all that Apple does -- such as launching its revolutionary iPod and iPhone -- eventually turns to gold, and this can be largely attributed to marketing and promotional activity strategies. Television, radio, internet, conferences, conventions and launch parties are all the areas that Apple promotion benefits from. In hitting all of these areas of notoriety by using the following tactics, Apple has created and maintained a promotional style that is unparalleled in the industry and keeps the company at the top.

The capacity for the iPad to become so successful began with its initial marketing and promotional campaign that asserted that such a product was indeed, for everyone. In an economy left reeling from the recent recession, media that the iPad caters to -- that has long been downsized in the real world -- has the capacity to exist on an entirely new playing field, which allowed Apple to align its promotions with the business and promotional tactics of other companies. For example, Apple has been in talks with several newspaper and magazine publishers about the distribution of their content on the iPad, which has until now been incapable of reaching mass audiences due to the recent downgrading of the American journalism industry. Because of this, publishers, businesses, and consumers alike are drawn in by Apple's message that distribution of content can be far easier than it has been in the past, along with its target goal of marrying content to fit the device itself (Varley, 2010, p.1).

Apple's previous successes in past products allows its new products, such as the iPad, to reach an audience far broader than other companies, due largely to the fact that consumers wait with increasing expectation for hyped products to eventually hit the shelves, and the majority of this hype is due to Apple's strategic and meticulous marketing and promotional activities. Apple's promotions have proven so successful, that customers decide against waiting for reviews to be released related to the product, but opt to purchase Apple products at unparalleled rates as soon as these products hit the shelves. For example, The Washington Post notes that one thing that has not gone unnoticed in viewing Apple's promotions and advertising is the crushing effect that Apple has had on its competitors. Apple has successfully remade traditional markets in its own image, leaving behind a wake of overturned business models, confounded managements and bereft shareholders (Ritholtz, 2011, p.G6).

Additionally, the iPad was able to garner an exceedingly large target audience through Apple's use of guerilla-style promotions and advertising. Apple's use of promotions, advertising and the limited release of information and prototype images in order to create hype in the market works exceedingly well to continuously cement Apple as a company that can do no wrong in the minds of its customers (Graham, 2011, p.33). Consumers anxiously await the tech shows and conferences in which such products are released, and the appearance of former Apple CEO, Steve Jobs in recent years was enough to incite riots among the public, seduced by Apple's promotions and promises, which far unlike other companies, rarely disappointed in the long-run.

Creative Brief

Apple's iPad is a product that allows its user to utilize innovative technology and design that is marketed to customers as being "an extension of you," which benefits consumers in a way that allows them the capacity to handle its features in a way that is natural and easy for the consumer. For instance, its iOS operating system allows consumers the capacity to work through a series of 140,000 iPad apps, along with over 200 features, all in a convenient and easy to understand touch screen. The iPad is thin, light, and fully loaded, allowing consumers to access a new world of technology, all with the convenience and reliability of straight-forward and timely applications.

Effectiveness of the Promotion

Apple's promotional strategy for the iPad is extremely effective, largely in its ability to portray the big idea of innovative and unprecedented technology being placed into the market without the hassles that come to technical laymen who wish to utilize it. Apple's visuals, copy and art all revolve around the bigger idea that the iPad was created for the "every man" rather than the technologically-savvy "nerd" that is often attributed to new releases in the technology industry.