De La Salle University - Dasmariñas 1

GRADUATE PROGRAM

WHY APPLE IS STILL A GREAT MARKETER AND

WHAT YOU CAN LEARN
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CAMILLE VICTORIA Y. PERENA

Graduate School of Business
College of Business Administration and Accountancy
De La Salle University- Dasmariñas
Dasmariñas City, Cavite

MARKETING MANAGEMENT
PROF. CELESTE MOLINA
Master in Business Administration
Saturdays, 10:30:1:30 p.m
3rd Semester, 2018-2019

June 22, 2019

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GRADUATE PROGRAM

WHY APPLE IS STILL A GREAT MARKETER AND

WHAT YOU CAN LEARN

A famous quote by Steve Jobs, co-founder & former CEO of Apple Inc.,
was “Marketing is about values. It’s a complicated and noisy world, and we’re not
going to get a chance to get people to remember much about us. No company is.
So we have to be really clear about what we want them to know about us (Vil-
lafane, 2019).”

In the article, Moorman (2018) mentioned the major issue faced by Apple
last December 2017, upon the admission of Apple CEO, Tim Cook, that Apple
slowed down iPhones as they get older, to prevent the user’s phone from shutting
down unexpectedly in cases where the battery was no longer able to provide
enough voltage to the processor for taxing operations. This resulted in a PR dis-
aster for the company, where those who have been accusing the company of
degrading performance on old iPhones to force customers to upgrade had an “I
told You So” moment (Greenfiled, 2017). In addition, the company faced at least
23 class lawsuits in different states in the US, low sales and collapse of stocks
(Sulleyman, 2017). As an apology, Apple replaced 11 million iPhone batteries
from its discounted battery replacement program which ran throughout 2018
wherein battery replacement was charged at 29$ from 79$- a huge 50$ discount
(Horwitz, 2019). So where does this leave Apple as a Pioneer Leader and Mar-
keter? Despite the despites, Moorman (2018) states that Apple is still a great
marketer and that, Apple’s consistent marketing excellence is built on some core
disciplines. Only that, in this scenario, Apple’s efforts to make things “simple” for
the customer led it to slowing phones to protect customer experience- without
explaining to the customers what it was doing or providing options to customers.

In a related article by Alang (2017), it was mentioned that Apple became a

victim of its own wildly successful business model. Apple's own strategy of mak-
ing its phones much faster than the competition and keeping them updated for
years has ironically backfired, making a 2- or 3-year-old phone fine for most peo-
ple. It’s almost as if the battery replacement program was planned obsolescence
and in fact, part of Apple’s business model. Hence, the strategy to slow perfor-
mance so that the lithium-ion battery of iPhones can cope, is a smart software
strategy by Apple but what wasn’t smart was keeping this information from its
users, especially that Apple warns MacBook users already when their batteries
must be serviced. The same logic must have been applied for iPhones. The whole
point of protecting customer experience got forfeited when they swept this vital
information under the rug.
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GRADUATE PROGRAM

Our smartphones are a huge part of our lives. They are our connection to
the world, entertainment, commerce, transit, and personal creativity. With
smartphones so critical to our daily lives, it’s easy to understand the immediate
backlash Apple received for modifying its users’ phones without full disclosure.
According to Moorman (2018)’s, she cited that two of the main reasons why Apple
is a great marketer is because they stuck to their “Whys” and they believed in
“Doing what is Right.” From the article, it was stated that Apple understood early
on that its products must fill a customer need and inspire first, and that this should
be the focus of marketing efforts. In the case of Apple’s issue with old iPhones,
they failed to stick to these two core principles because sticking to their “Whys”
also meant not to be overruled by technological advancements ,issues and R&D.
On the other hand and on the onset, they tried to mitigate risk and do the right
thing eventually, by admitting to the accusations and offering a battery replace-
ment program. This move paved way for lost sales but for a company like Apple
that cares about the long-term and quarterly revenues, this is still a good sign. As
an evangelist myself for Apple products, I give credit to the experience Apple’s
devices affected my life positively and issues like this, although alarmed me, is
forgivable. As former P&G CEO Robert McDonald said, “The more intimate the
relationship, the more indispensable it becomes.”

Whether it’s part of Apple’s business model or not, for sure, there are learn-
ings Apple acquired from this incident. We are at an era where people crave for
authenticity, raw and organic experience while technology is at an unstoppable
pace. And even a company as big as Apple is struggling to make both of these
facts meet. In the meantime, other companies can learn from Apple’s violation of
user trust by noting the importance of transparency, and not shying away from
explaining hard-to-grasp technical issues to consumers.