Marketing Plan for the Launch of a new, electricity powered BMW in to Essay

Marketing Plan for the Launch of a new, electricity powered BMW in to the UK market - Essay Example BMW can be categorised as being the fashion brand. Its future growth strategy has been focused upon achieving greater market share in luxury car market by providing its customers innumerable alternatives (BMW Films, n.d.). It has three brands namely BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce Motor cars. The BMW Group has set its vision upon the premium sector of the international automobile markets. In order to achieve this aim the company is well equipped with the knowledge of deploying its strength along with the efficiency that is unmatched in the automotive industry. The company can be marked as the leader in providing the premium products and services for individual mobility (BMW Group, 2010). This marketing plan has been developed to launch the new i8 car of BMW in the UK. It will deal with the tactics and strategies that are required to launch a product in the UK market. The chosen vehicle is an electric car with zero emission. Therefore, it would be prudent to have a brief understanding on th is product of BMW. It is to be noted that BMW’s i8 has been based upon the Vision EfficientDynamics concept. It’s a plug-in hybrid drive vehicle. It aims at offering high performance and low fuel consumption as well as low CO2 emission. It is worth mentioning that the term ‘i’ refers to sustainable vehicles and mobility solutions (Auto Sr. Reporter, 2011). 2.0 Situation Analysis 2.1 Company Analysis BMW has been a luxury and performance car manufacturer. The revenue of the company had been ?3.468 billion in the year 2008. There has been decline in revenue by ?0.7 billion from 2007. Its target market has been middle to upper class individuals and families and business users. It tries to maintain a competitive edge by relying on the ‘Efficient Dynamics’ strategy. It endeavours to adapt to the latest technology and focuses upon greater sustainability. It is majorly customer focused (Bai & Et. Al., 2009). 2.2 Competitors Analysis The major competi tors of BMW in the UK are AUDI and Mercedes-Benz. However, the market share of BMW had been the highest in three consecutive years, i.e. 2006, 2007 and 2008. In the year 2006 the market share of BMW had been 6.45% while that of AUDI and Mercedes-Benz had been 3.6% and 3.31% respectively. The market share of BMW in the year 2007 had been 6.97% in comparison to 4.2% and 3.39% of Audi and Mercedes-Benz respectively. In the year 2008, there had been a slight decline in the market share of BMW by 0.63 points. It had been registered at 6.34% of BMW and 4.7% and 3.42% of AUDI and Mercedes-Benz respectively (Bai & Et. Al., 2009). It is essential to know about the competitors in order to launch the product. The understanding of the existing competitors can aid while considering the quality of a new product to be launched and will also aid in innovating new ideas that can be implemented in the products and services. Customer responsiveness will help the organisation to establish the needs and wants of the customers and develop the products that can be used to satisfy the needs of the customers (Bai & Et. Al., 2

A Conceptual Model for Evaluating Segments Research Paper

A Conceptual Model for Evaluating Segments - Research Paper Example (1992), the evaluation matrix proposed by Sarabia (1996) and the strategy-aligned fuzzy MADM model proposed by Ou et al. (2009). All three models have departed from the traditional notion that statistical measures can be used to evaluate segments and have embarked on a more flexible and subjective (to the firm) or firm-specific approach to the segment evaluation. It is suggested by the analysis that a synthesis of these three models can potentially produce a holistic tool for evaluating segments; a tool which considers both the internal and external forces and which incorporates the firm’s specific needs. Introduction The evaluation of market segments is one of the most critical aspects in the entire segmentation analysis, given that the segments that are eventually selected by firms need to be attractive, measurable and substantial (Beane and Ennis, 1987; Sarabia, 1996). Segmentation is crucial because it provides a direction for marketing strategies to be developed; on the b asis of segmentation firms design specific marketing activities targeting clusters of the market which are share some degree of homogeneity and which are likely to respond in a similar manner to marketing incentives (Jonker et al., 2004). According to Wind (1978) and Ou et al. (2009) segmentation should be not only approached through statistical measures which only provide a picture of the differences between various segments, but more consistently should be approached through subjective measures as well, which denote the essence of the judgements of the decision makers and as Sarabia (1996) stresses, the distinctiveness of each firm (and each firm’s needs). Thus evaluation of segments becomes of crucial importance because it shows on the one hand the attractiveness of each segment identified but this attractiveness is measured by incorporating the specific-firm aspects as well. In this paper, three models for evaluating segments are presented and assessed in terms of their s trengths in an attempt to synthesize a theoretical framework for segment evaluation. Different Approaches to Market Segmentation Market segmentation is treated differently by many academic researchers and scholars. According to Beane and Ennis (1987) the existence of various approaches towards market segmentation reveals the different viewpoints on the subject. Market segmentation is often viewed as clustering the markets in an attempt to identify segments which can be profitable for business, but is also often viewed as simple categorization of the consumers in groups with no essential meaning attached to them. Segmentation can be treated on the basis of geographical data, psychographics, demographics and behavioural data. Other treatment of segmentation may be based on purchase occasion or even benefit clusters (Beane and Ennis, 1987). The different approaches to market segmentation eventually affect the marketing practices of firms in that they illuminate different dimensions of the customer base or the target segment. For example, a demographic segmentation may be useful in products for which consumption is largely dependent on the demographic data of the market, but unequally neglects other elements of the target market which may also have a close relevance to the consumption. According to Allenby et al. (2002) there are two primary differences in the treatment of market segmentation: the ‘ex ante’ and the ‘ex post’; the ex ante approach indicates an exploration of the drivers behind the consumers’ behaviour while the ex post approach indicates an investigation of the responses of the consumers’ behaviour in the various marketing offerings. In general the different market segmentati