Table of Contents
Executive Summary 1
1. Background Analysis 2
2. Marketing Objective & Business Strategy 3
2.1 BMW Australia Market-Share Objective 3
2.2 Strategic Business Unit 3
3. Segmentation, Targeting & Positioning 4
3.1 Market Segmentation for BMW i8 4
3.2 Targeting 7
3.3 Positioning 8
4. Marketing Mix 9
5. Consumer Behaviour 12
6. Conclusion 13
7. References 14
Executive Summary
The base of every marketing plan is to understand the direction of the business unit and define the type of customers who are willing to buy your product. That is, understanding the market and setting an objective to take advantage of existing and new opportunities. According to Hassan and Craft (2012, p 344), ‘in an increasingly global and technologically [advanced] marketplace’ certain marketing strategies must be adopted by multinational companies who manufacture products and offer services in order to remain competitive and retain customers. These strategies can be classified into three categories:
Category 1: Segmentation Process
Category 2: Marketing Mix
Category 3: Consumer Behaviour
The first category, explores the segmentation process where the market is firstly defined; then segmented through the demographic, geodemographic and psychographic variables. Secondly a profitable customer is targeted and finally the product is positioned in the segment and aligned with the brand equity to achieve maximum sales and profits.
The second category is the marketing mix. The marketing mix as the ultimate tool for marketers; this paper recommends that a considerable effort must be given to two out of the four marketing mix tools in order to achieve the proposed objective.
The final and third category, explores the relationship between the level of involvement associated with purchasing a vehicle and the prevailing influences on customer decision making. This area also examines the connection between consumer behaviour in relation to proposed changes of the marketing mix. The table below summaries the key findings of this paper:
1. Background Analysis
2. Marketing objective & Business Strategy
2.1 BMW Australia Market-Share Objective
As the analysis and objective report has demonstrated the internal and external environment of BMW Australia including; the SWOT analysis and the PESTEL framework the following market-share objective is proposed for the new BMW i8 plug-in hybrid electric car:
To gain 3% of the plugin-hybrid vehicle market-share in Australia by 2020.
2.2 Strategic Business Unit
The strategic business unit for BMW Australia is the BMW i brand where this business unit entity has its own mission derived from the overall corporate strategy of BMW Group ‘Strategy Number One’. This business unit focuses on three strategic pillars where the BMW i8 can compete effectively and build on its market-share. The first pillar is concerned with generating growth in segmented markets; the second is concerned with shaping the future through competitor product differentiation and product sustainability. The third and final pillar is concerned with pursuing technology relentlessly, developing new sales concepts and providing visionary services (BMWGroup 2013). Even though all of the three pillars are critical to the BMW i8’s future success in Australia; the first pillar of growth however, is the most essential for the realisation of the marketing objective as it creates sales and therefore leads to the attainment of the 3 per cent market-share by 2020 (FCAI 2008).
3. Segmentation, Targeting & Positioning
3.1 Market Segmentation for BMW i8
BMW Australia’s market segment for the plugin-hybrid electric vehicle (BMW i8) can be classified into the following:
