ABSTRACT
Steve Jobs, the co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple, was a master at product differentiation. Jobs and his Apple design team were always steps ahead of their competition in product design (examples are the Apple II, Mac, iPhone, and iPad). Firms such as Apple with some degree of monopoly power can control their product price and influence their output by advertising and differentiating their product. The resulting enhanced profit is not necessarily caused by advertising and product differentiation. Profits may be high because the product coincidentally was offered in the right place at the right time. (An example is a firm selling iodine tablets for radiation after the Japanese Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power meltdown in 2011.) However, in general, improvements in effective marketing can boost profit significantly. Marketing efficiency of a firm may be characterized in terms of attempting to satisfy customer preferences by acquiring information on these preferences, determining competing firms’ strategies, and then efficiently allocating marketing resources.
