Adobe Marketing Strategy & Marketing Mix (4Ps)

Published in Products category by MBA Skool Team

Marketing Strategy of Adobe analyzes the brand with the marketing mix framework which covers the 4Ps (Product, Price, Place, Promotion). These business strategies, based on Adobe marketing mix, help the brand succeed in the market. Let us start the Adobe Marketing Strategy & Mix to understand its product, pricing, advertising & distribution strategies:

Adobe Product Strategy:

The product strategy and mix in Adobe marketing strategy can be explained as follows:

Adobe is one of the most well-established software companies, which provides solutions in graphics, web design, servers, video/audio etc. Adobe has a strong product portfolio strategy in its marketing mix, which can be covered as below:

• Graphic design software - Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, Adobe Acrobat

• Web design programs - Dreamweaver, Contribute, Flash Builder, Flash etc

• Video editing and visual effects, Audio editing software, eLearning software

• Digital Marketing Management Software - Marketing Cloud, Experience Manager etc

• Server softwares, web hosted services

• Formats – PDF, SWF, LV, Filmstrip

Some well-known products of Adobe are explained as below:

• Adobe’s graphics design softwares are professional level softwares used by most businesses and accepted by the industry as standard graphics editing tools. Adobe Photoshop was developed in 1988 by Thomas and John Knoll. It is a raster image editing software where one could use different level of layers to work on separate effects on the same image, use masking and produce different effects, creators can also use several color schemes like RGB, CMYK and duotone as per their requirement.

• Adobe Lightroom is a software similar to Photoshop but the editing done here is non-destructive. Moreover, it is lighter than Photoshop and uses less resources and hence good for lighter work and editing of photos.

• Adobe InDesign is more of a publishing tool which can help professionals create posters, brochures, book covers and collages etc. It can also help in creating content suitable for publishing in smaller devices like tablets etc.

• Adobe Illustrator is an image editor for vector graphics. Vector graphics is suitable for creating images which needs scaling.

It is generally used to create logos and large size posters.

• Adobe Acrobat is the PDF reader and editor which is widely used throughout the world. But lately, it has been very bulky and day to day users prefer lighter alternatives like Foxit reader.

• Adobe Dreamweaver is a web development tool. It supports CSS, JavaScript and various other scripting languages that helps the users create and manage websites with ease. It provides an integrated development environment.

• Adobe Flash provides a platform for creators to make rich internet animations and games. But some developers avoid using it as they believe it may have security loopholes.


Image: company website


Adobe Price/Pricing Strategy:

Below is the pricing strategy in Adobe marketing strategy:

Adobe softwares are mostly targeted towards the professionals and corporations and hence priced at a premium level. Adobe follows a subscription model in the name of “creative cloud” which costs $19.99 per month.

Creative cloud photography only costs $9.99 per month. They follow variable pricing strategy in their marketing mix as the photography softwares are most popular and used by many. The creative cloud provides access to around 20 apps which may not be useful to everyone. So this may discourage customers who only want photography softwares from doing business with Adobe. So in order to avoid this they sell only photography softwares in a separate bundle. They provide 60% discount to students and teachers in order to encourage the use of their softwares for learning and education. Moreover, they provide free trial of all their softwares to help customers make an informed buying decision. A wide variety of flexible licensing options for classrooms, labs, departments and schools are also available. There are Customized pricing and licensing plans tailored to the needs of large institutions in specific.

Read more about Adobe

Adobe Place & Distribution Strategy:

Following is the distribution strategy in the Adobe marketing mix:

Adobe sell their softwares online through their website. There is also an option to buy the softwares from third party vendors.

The cloud based services followed in their creative cloud solutions need fast internet speeds and the user directly gets access after payment to use the softwares on a monthly payment basis.


Adobe Promotion & Advertising Strategy:

The promotional and advertising strategy in the Adobe marketing strategy is as follows:

The ads generally portray a situation where the Adobe products help the client achieve their design targets in an innovative way. The creativity aspect is emphasized in the commercials. We can take the example of “Keep up with Hovering art director” campaign by Adobe where they explore the powerful and flexible features of Adobe Stock. They try to create an experience and server customer needs in an innovative manner. We can see this in their “The Heist” campaign. Adobe Experience Cloud gives the advertising, intelligence, and marketing tools one need to deliver personal and relevant experiences. They convey this message through the innovative ad where a group of robbers are side tracked by the customer experience that Adobe products give. Hence, this concludes the marketing mix of Adobe.


About Adobe:

Adobe is an American multinational company that develops creative software solutions. Its HQ is located in the silicon valley. The Adobe company was founded by John Warnock in his garage. The name of the company comes from a creek with similar name which ran behind John’s house in Los Altos, California. Its corporate logo was designed by John’s wife Marva. It was the first company in silicon valley to become profitable in the first year of its inception. It was because Steve Jobs purchased 19% shares in the company at five time the valuation and also paid five year advance licensing fees for one of their softwares. In 1989 Adobe introduced its flagship product, Photoshop, a graphics editing program which soon dominated the market.

In 1993 Adobe introduced the PDF format for documents and its Adobe reader. PDF became an international standard.

This article has been researched & authored by the Content & Research Team. It has been reviewed & published by the MBA Skool Team. The content on MBA Skool has been created for educational & academic purpose only.

Browse marketing strategy and 4Ps analysis of more brands similar to Adobe. The Marketing Strategy & Mix section covers 4Ps and 7Ps of more than 800 brands in 2 categories.

Continue Reading:


The names and other brand information used in the Marketing Strategy & Mix section are properties of their respective companies. The companies are not associated with MBA Skool in any way.

Share this Page on:
Facebook ShareTweetShare on Linkedin