DIPLOMA IN MANAGEMENT (DIM)

MAY SEMESTER/ 2022

BDPM1103

INTRODUCTORY MARKETING
CONTENT PAGE

1. Introduction 1
a) Apple’s company background 1-2
b) Samsung’s company background 3-4

2. Core concepts of marketing 4

a) Advertising 4-5
b) Costumer engagement 5
c) Innovation and Technology 5
d) Public and relations and publicity 5-6
e) Video marketing 6
f) Entertainment 6

3. Marco environment factor 6

a) Social cultural 6-7
b) Technologies 7
c) Political factor 7-8
d) Economic factor 8

1. Conclusion 9
2. References 10
1. INTRODUCTION

The marketing environmental factors influence on the market is an ongoing

subject discuss an monitor by both marketer and managers all around the
world. There are two main types of marketing environment factors, which is,
micro environment factors and macro environment factors. Micro environment
factors consists of the forces that are closer to the company and macro
environment factors are consists of larger forces that are beyond the
company’s control. Marketers will analyse all these factors in order to identify
the opportunities and threats in the markets. The main purpose of these
marketing environment is to improve the relationship of the company with its
customer.

In this task, we will learn about the core concepts of marketing and the
influence of environmental factors on marketing for these two company of
Apple and Samsung. The product from these two both companies are very
popular in Malaysia.

a) Apple’s Company

Apple Computers, Inc. was founded on April 1, 1976, by college

dropouts Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, who brought to the new
company a vision of changing the way people viewed computers. Jobs
and Wozniak wanted to make computers small enough for people to
have them in their homes or offices. Simply put, they wanted a
computer that was user-friendly.

Jobs and Wozniak started out building the Apple I in Jobs' garage and
sold them without a monitor, keyboard, or casing (which they decided
to add on in 1977). The Apple II revolutionized the computer industry
with the introduction of the first-ever color graphics.

Wozniak left Apple in 1983 due to a diminishing interest in the day-to-

day running of Apple Computers. Jobs then hired PepsiCo's John
Sculley to be president. However, this move backfired and after much
controversy with Sculley, Jobs left in 1985 and went on to new and
bigger things. He founded his own company NeXT Software and he
also bought Pixar from George Lucas, which would later become a
huge success in computer animation of such movies as Toy Story, A
Bug's Life, Monsters, Inc., and Finding Nemo.

Over the course of a few years, Apple's market share suffered slowly
after its peak in 1990 and by 1996, experts believed the company to be
doomed. It was not until 1997, when Apple was desperately in need of
an operating system, that it bought out NeXT Software (Jobs'
company) and the board of directors decided to ask for some help from
an old friend: Steve Jobs. Jobs became an interim CEO, or i-CEO as
he called himself (Jobs was not officially the CEO until 2000). Jobs
decided to make some changes around Apple. He forged an alliance
with Microsoft to create a Mac version of its popular office software.

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Not long after this decision was the turning point for the company. Jobs
revamped the computers and introduced the i-book (a personal laptop)
followed by iPod, an mp3 player, which became market leader.

The iPhone, a touch screen cellular phone, introduced in 2007 was one
of the world' most successful products and the company has released
several new versions since. Other popular products include iPad tablet
and Apple Watch. Most recently Apple has expanded its services
segments with its credit card (Apple Card), Apple News for news,
Apple Arcade for games and the Apple TV+ for streaming original
content produced by Apple.

Image 1 Apple logo

Steve Jobs died October 5, 2011, but Apple continues on with his
legacy with Tim Cook at the helm as the CEO. The popularity of
iPhones made Apple the first company valued at one trillion dollars in
2018 and two years later it doubled that figure.

Image 2 Steve Jobs holding an iPhone, 2010

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b) Samsung’s Company

Samsung is a South Korean company originally founded as a grocery

trading store by Lee Byung-Chull in March 1938. The company forayed
in the electronics industry in 1969 and its first electronic product was a
black-and-white television. With only 30,000 won (about US$27), Lee
Byung-chul started Samsung as a trading company based in a city
called Taegu in 1938. With 40 employees, Samsung began as a
grocery store, trading and exporting goods produced in and around
the city. It sold dried Korean fish and vegetables, as well as its own
noodles.

Image 3 Samsung’s Electronic Building Company

The company grew and expanded to Seoul in 1947 but left when the
Korean War broke out. Following the war, Lee started a sugar refinery
in Busan before expanding into textiles and building what was, at the
time, the largest woolen mill in Korea.

This early diversification became a successful growth strategy for

Samsung, which rapidly expanded into the insurance, securities, and
retail businesses. After the war, Samsung focused on the
redevelopment of Korea, especially industrialization.

In the 1960s, Samsung entered the electronics industry with the

formation of several electronics-focused divisions:

 Samsung Electronics Devices

 Samsung Electro-Mechanics
 Samsung Corning
 Samsung Semiconductor & Telecommunications

In 1970, Samsung-Sanyo produced its first black and white TVs and
expanded its reach into shipbuilding, petrochemicals, and aircraft
engines. Over the next decade, Samsung also produced transistor

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 black and white TVs, color TVs, refrigerators, electric desk
calculators, and air conditioners. In 1978, the company reached the
landmark of having produced 5 million TVs.

Samsung forayed into mobile phones in 2000 with the launch of a

feature phone with built-in camera that could take up to 20 photos at a
time. By late 2000, the company had launched several phones, but its
global success story started with the launch of the Galaxy S series of
smartphones that used the company’s OLED screen technology and
hummingbird processor. Besides smartphones, the company is also a
major vendor of tablet computers, particularly Android-powered
Samsung Galaxy Tab-series, and is regarded as the originator of the
alphabet category through its Samsung Galaxy Note-series devices.

Now, Samsung is one of the major manufacturers of electronic

components globally. It is also one of the major suppliers of electronic
products like batteries, semiconductors, chips, flash memory and hard
drive to companies such as Apple, Sony, Nokia, etc. Samsung has also
been the world's largest manufacturer of television since 2006, and of
smartphones since 2011. In 2017, the company overtook Intel to also
become the world's largest manufacturer of semiconductor chips.

2. CORE CONCEPTS OF MARKETING

a) Advertising

Apple has launched online advertisement campaigns to reach the

users. The iPhone website has clean, clear and witty interface.The
iPhone advertisement of Apple is similar, always with white
background, exotically alluring to the users. And, Apple is never
hesitating to highlight the advantages of the products to the target
audience.

Image 4 iPhone 6

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 Similarly, Samsung is giving importance on advertisement of Galaxy S.
It promotes mobile phones- bringing a dark blue interface in contrast to
the white background brought by Apple. Galaxy S is promoted as
somewhat vibrant, fast and thinnest mobile phone and the advantages
embraced are explained clearly.

Image 5 Samsung Galaxy A7

b) Costumer engagement

Apple launched ‘Your Verse’ to highlight how different people use iPad

to do things incredibly and in their own way. This campaign launched in
2014 became more of a story of people using iPad instead of the
product itself.

Samsung launched its own campaign, ‘Incredible Art Piece’. This

campaign was expressly designed to promote Galaxy Note pen style.
This campaign itself became a Guinness World Book entry with the
record of maximum number of artists working on a single art work

c) Innovation and Technology

It is no doubt that Apple leads in innovation than Samsung. Apple is

broadly considered as a great innovator in the smartphone industry. It
is famous for beautiful designs and new applications.

In comparison, Samsung is viewed as a follower for a long time. Since

the launch of Galaxy S4, Samsung has considered Apple’s innovative
design of the iPhone as “not so stunning”, and continues to be a
notable competitor.

d) Public and relations and publicity

Apple has a powerful effect to influence customer. It is because, Apple

is using publicity for free and yet powerful way to interact with
customers. In case of Apple, when more and more people are seen
having and iPhone, other individuals get compelled to have the one;
this is known as halo effect. Halo effect is the tendency for positive
impressions of a person, company, brand or product in one area to
positively influence one's opinion or feelings in other areas.

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 In contrast, Samsung is using Social Media such as Facebook to
promote its products and all possible channels or marketing.

e) Video marketing

It got started in 2012 when Samsung brought the campaign ‘The Next
Big Thing is Already Here’ to promote their new smartphone series,
Galaxy S II. In the episode in this competition is another dig at
Apple; Samsung’s Grad Pool Party ad was released in May 2013 to
promote their latest smartphone, Galaxy S4.

That act helped Samsung to jump-start market share, and proved to

become a viral video content powerhouse. Samsung has increased its
video efforts by over 360% in the past 5 years; on the contrary, Apple
has only leveraged it by 5.8% campaigns a year, within the recent 5
years.

f) Entertainment

Apple may win at innovation & publicity but when it comes to

marketing, Samsung prioritize complete entertainment. Samsung
believes in its value and adores the power of a celebrity.

Samsung made sure its product was front and center at the Oscars.
Millions of viewers see host Ellen DeGeneres taking selfies with guest
stars using a Samsung phone.

The brand partnered with famous music icon JayZ for his ‘Magna Carta
Holy Grail’ album, and teamed up with Usher for product placements in
his ‘Looking for Myself’ music video. Apple also generated the buzz
among the music industry for procuring ‘Beats’ by Dr. Dre but it felt to
be a little late.

3. MACRO ENVIROMENT FACTOR

a) Social-cultural

The social factors comprised of a growing trend towards a more

efficient and easy to use computer system that is better than the IBM
features. Apple was quick to respond to this immediately the call arose
and this increase the social preference of Apple as an innovative brand
that understand the importance of meeting customers’ needs. The
positioning of Apple also played significant role as demonstrated in the
case because people viewed it as a brand that can be used to display
social status.

Samsung operates as a South Korean family-owned company. The

products are exported to countries all over the world. And Samsung
must adapt and tailor its products to these local markets. This means,

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 to provide the best options, the company must truly understand a range
of audiences. Rather than creating something new and desired, it
seems Samsung needed a Siri or Google Voice assistant of their own
to remain competitive. Sometimes, innovation isn’t necessary. Not
when everyone is making “innovative” changes people don’t want. Like
the removal of the headphone jack, something Apple has adopted into
its newest iPhone and iPad. Other companies show signs of following
the trend, but not Samsung. Samsung is keeping the headphone jack
on Galaxy phones — something the vocal majority is praising the
company for.

b) Technologies factor

The technologies adopted by the brand also influenced growth

positively because it comprised of high-end technological solutions that
helped provide the needs and demands of customers with respect to
PC and computer systems. Following numerous successful
partnerships with other tech-giants such as Microsoft and IBM, Apple
went on to establish its own software and designed the Macintosh to be
able to standalone and support word processing capabilities. This
totally differentiated the brand from others as it also features some of
the most innovative design tools.

Technology is Samsung’s biggest strength. Everything they offer —

phones, televisions, tablets — are all facets of technology. The
company consistently creates upgrades to existing product every
couple of years. Then there’s the risk of manufacturing errors.
Samsung experienced this first hand with their exploding phones. The
batteries inside the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 were faulty and easily
overheated, causing them to explode. This problem was a disaster;
Samsung says more than 95 percent of the fights in the United States
were returned. The only voice Samsung had was to recall, promise to
do better, and learn from their mistakes while creating new products.
The controversy remains, although many audiences still buy Samsung
phones today. Many look forward to the newest product, the Samsung
Galaxy 10.

c) Political factor

The innovation laid down by the company had positive backups from
the government of the US as it was in line with the country’s dream
productivity scheme. Additionally, the allies from advanced world such
as the UK, Australia and Japan also welcomed the innovation. China
was not to be left out as the company moved quickly to open a brand of
its production segment in the Chinese market in order to increase
penetration in order parts of the Asian world. The main reason why
Apple was welcomed across the globe by governments of these
countries is due to the high influence it had on employ-ability
.

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 Samsung is an electronics company and needs to abide by new and
pre-exist governmental regulations. And what about political
stability? Without it, profits drop and expenses can serge. In some
cases, instability will lead to companies pulling their products from
international markets. The consequences can be devastating for a
firm’s financial growth. Yet interestingly, Samsung has suffered and
benefited from the exploitation of political instability. Samsung cozies
up to two different political parties in South Korea, and suffered a blow-
back after associating too closely with the first female President of
South Korea.

d) Economic factor

The increase in penetration of the Apple brand coupled with the high
demand and consumer loyalty influenced the economic performance of
the company positively. As of 2007, the company has well established
itself in the major markets that include the USA, Japan, China,
Australia and Europe, and their innovative business idea developed a
whole new sense of feeling with regard to PC, which influence the
demand for their products positively. Basically, the case noted that the
demand for computers was on the high in the 2000s and this was as a
result of subsequent surge for increase performance in both the
corporate and government levels. Apple was quick to react to this new
trend by bringing in the Macintosh, which went on to become a
standalone system and the computer giant started developing its own
software through numerous acquisitions.

The strength of the Korean won is a large factor for Samsung’s

success. In 2014, the company blamed the declining Korean currency
for the 25 percent profit decline. But that’s not the only thing to blame;
the slow developing smartphone market was put on the chopping
block. Followed closely by time — it takes years to develop the new
version of Samsung products, resulting in stagnant sales. Not everyone
swaps out a functioning, preexisting phone just because a newer
version has appeared. Let’s not forget how saturated the smartphone
market is. Big brands like Apple and Google are direct competitors.
Samsung remains the leader in the phone manufacturing sector, but
this is a double-edged sword: remaining the supreme lord gives the
company an added benefit in this thin industry, but it also means
Samsung relies heavily on phone sales to keep the lights on. Paving
the way of innovation is the only way for Samsung to remain on top.

CONCLUSION

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In my opinion, which one I would choose between Apple and Samsung, I am
more prefer Samsung more than iPhone. One of the reason is, Samsung is
more affordable than the iPhone .As we can see that, Apple products are
more pricey than Samsung and not all people can afford it. But it is different
with Samsung product, where it is more cheap than iPhone and still have a
high quality products. Besides, I would choose a product which is we can use
it for a long term and of course it is a Samsung. The popular product between
Samsung and iphone is a smartphone. Smartphone batteries are made of
lithium-ion which means they inevitably degrade overtime. Therefore, if you
are planning to buy an iPhone just because of the longer OS support, keep in
mind that the battery will take a hit and you might have to but a new device in
three four years anyway. Therefore, I would prefer Samsung than iPhone.

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REFERENCES

1. Ann Brashares, Steve Jobs Thinks Different. Brookfield, CT: Twenty-First

Century Books, 2001. pp. 15-16.
2. Ann Brashares, Steve Jobs Thinks Different. Brookfield, CT: Twenty-First
Century Books, 2001. pp. 47-48, 54.
3. https://guides.loc.gov/this-month-in-business-history/april/apple-
computers-founded#note_5.
4. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Apple-Inc/After-Jobs-Tim-Cook-as-CEO-
and-the-first-trillion-dollar-company.
5. https://www.business-standard.com
6. https://www.lifewire.com/history-of-samsung-818809
7. Delhi school of internet marketing - https://dsim.in/blog/2017/01/28/case-
study-apple-vs-samsung-a-battle-of-marketing
relevancy/#Public_Relations_and_Publicity
8. https://www.lexico.com/definition/halo_effect
9. http://ilokabenneth.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-influence-of-business-
environment.html
10. https://pestleanalysis.com/pest-analysis-of-samsung/

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