Complementary Approach To Traditional Essay Dissemination.

Discuss about the Complementary Approach To Traditional Dissemination.

A new product idea which survives the stage of screening of the new product development (NPD) needs a much more detailed and sophisticated business analysis (Hilletofth, Reitsman and Eriksson, 2018). Such analysis would help the company to determine the scope of the very product in the market. It is to note that a new product refers to the good or service which is perceived by some of the potential consumers to be new. As stated by Garcez, Sbragia and Kruglianskas (2014), there are a total of six categories of new product. They are- (1) the product that is new-to-the-world (2) the product that is new-to-the-company (3) Additions to the prevailing product lines (4) Improvements of the existing products (5) Repositioning and (6) Cost reductions. However, the chance of failure of the new products is very high and it is been argued that a strong product planning has the potential of reducing this chance for the companies.

The automobile industry has always been known as one of the most competitive sectors in the world. It needs huge capital for its development and growth. Toyota is one of the big giants in this industry and is successfully operating since its emergence in 1937 by Kiichiro Toyoda. However, this paper shall elaborate on presenting an analysis of Toyota Yaris, one of the best Sedan cars that has at present engaged in a great social media presence. It shall present a marketing mix and its target market analysis. It shall further shed light on the various strategies that are used by the brand for attracting the target market.

Fig 1: 4Ps of Marketing Mix

Marketing mix, which is also refer to as the 4Ps, is considered to be the foundation model in the field of marketing (Becker, 2015). It can be defined as the set of tools of marketing which the company makes use in order to pursue its objectives of marketing. It concerns to an integration of different tools in the context to a particular product or service. In marketing mix, there are a total of four key aspects of a specific product and they are- the product itself, its price, its place and its promotion (Resnick et al., 2016). In order to develop an effective marketing strategy for Toyota Yaris, it is very important that the firm also develop or create an effective marketing mix. Taking all these aspects into consideration, it would become very easy for the firm to establish this car in an improved way. However, the marketing mix elements of Toyota Yaris are mentioned below:

• Product- Product is a very essential part of the entire marketing mix. This is due to the fact that every other aspects of marketing mix revolve around this aspect. Toyota is always known for providing its customers with both tangible as well as intangible products right from its cars to warranties (Lin, 2018). The product classification of Toyota Yaris is speciality. It is at its growth stage and the physical design of this car is the packaging (Fulgoni, Pettit and Lipsman, 2017). It has a 4 cylinder engine of VTEC-turbocharged and it is available in a wide range of colours like grey, silver, super white, black red and blue. Some of its significant safety features include- 9 airbags, whiplash preventing seats, child safety seat restraints and tire pressure monitoring system. It comes in 3 to 5 door options, 15.6 cubic feet of cargo space, lower fuel bill and 60/40 split storage. Furthermore, its smart technology features include a USB, AM/FM radio, Bluetooth, Steering wheel mounted audio, HD radio, AUX and a CD player. The main competitors of its are- Skoda Rapid, Honda City, Maruti Ciaz and Nissan Sunny (Davcik and Sharma, 2015). Unlike its competitors who also get an option of diesel engine, Yaris is offered with petrol engine. Also, it offers paddle shifters for gear shifting.
• Price- Toyota is known to build high quality cars and they price them moderately (Chen and Midler, 2016). The price of Toyota Yaris in the market as of the year 2018 is 14,845$ to 16,880$. Toyota has priced this car slightly above as compared to its rival. The base price of Honda city and Maruti Ciaz starts from 8.7 lakh and 7.8 lakh respectively, while that of Yaris is 8.8 lakh. The company has made use of low cost and differentiation strategy in order to have a competitive edge within the automobile industry (Rusich and Danielis, 2015). It has differentiated its Yaris from the rest others on the terms of superior design, technology as well as its quality. It is offering a segment of the best 7 airbags as a standards over all the Yaris range. The Verna, Ciaz and the City get dual airbags as the standard while the range topping versions of two of its major competitors- the Hyundai and the Honda see the airbag count to only 6. It is also to note that it determines the level of price of the products on the basis of conditions of the Australian market and the perceptions of the people living there. Hence, the pricing policy of Toyota is customer sensitive.
• Promotion- Thirdly, the promotion of a product refers to the activities that are undertaken for making the product known to the customers and the trade (Stark 2015). It is to note that the company makes use of several promotional strategies for increasing the volume of its sale of Yaris and all the other goods and services. Furthermore, it makes use of the traditional media advertising method for the advertisement of Toyota Yaris such as through television, newspaper, radio, billboards, internet, yellow pages, brochures and word-of-mouth along with direct mailing and product placement (Fulgoni, Pettit and Lipsman, 2017). Moreover, it also starts to promote its product with cash back offers. With the same, the company support a huge range of Australian activities by means of its community sponsorship and promotion programs. It include the Australian Football League. Here it has been the premier partner committee, triathlon, snow sports, cycling and surfing. It is the key partner of the TCMF (Tamworth Country Music Festival) as well in addition to being the primary sponsor of the National Tree Day of Planet Ark. It has also started a campaign called “Let’s Explore Your World” campaign for the promotion of Yaris. Toyota is using various advertising medium like the newspaper, television and websites in order to advertise Toyota Yaris in the market and make people aware of its existence and product features (Gao, Yu and Cannella, 2017). With the same, the company also promotes the product by means of public relations like the TogetherGreen program of Toyota, which is known to support the environmental initiatives (Stern, Ardoin and Powell, 2017). Also, it promotes its product through the Meal per hour program which donates food to the Food Bank. Such public relation activities by the company is successfully attracting the customers and its target market and is also creating a brand image for the Toyota worldwide. It is also to note that sometimes, Toyota also makes use of direct selling for the corporate clients (Calof, 2015). It has also went into partnership with the Newspaper marketing agencies.
• Place or distribution- Lastly, place in marketing mix refers to the point of sale. In all the industries, catching the eyes of the customers and making it easier for them to buy the product is the primary aim of a good distribution strategy (Ailawadi and Farris, 2017). Toyota always give the first priority to its customers and it knows the importance of making Yaris available to the target audience (Gao, Yu and Cannella, 2017). It sell this product through means of dealership and the sales are made to the customers by the selling staffs on the basis of one to one. It also has some sales representatives as well. Also, the retailers in the auto supply stores sell Toyota Yaris and its spare parts and related accessories. Hence, Toyota depends greatly on the dealerships in order to sell Toyota Yaris to its target market.

Marketing Mix

Target market of company refers to the specific segment of the total population which the company aims to sell to. It is classified into two groups- primary target market and secondary target market (Firat, Turker and Metin, 2014). The primary target market of a company refers to the customers who are most likely to buy the product immediately after its launch. On the other hand, the secondary target market refers to the group of customers who might be more likely to buy the product or service in the future or could influence others to buy it. However, the primary and the secondary target market of Toyota Yaris are as follows:

• Primary target market-

The primary target market of Yaris is the younger audience of this car belonging from 18 to 26 years. They are likely to have a post-secondary education and are employed as full-time. One of the great benefits of targeting the youths is that they influence the purchase decisions of their friends and families as well and are likely to become loyal customers of the company.

• Secondary target market-

The secondary target market of Toyota Yaris are the men who belong from the age range of 30 to 45 years the women belonging from the age range of 35 to 44 years. The demographic traits of this target customers are similar to that of the primary. They too would likely to have post-secondary education and are employed as full-time and are likely to own houses of their own. With the same, they have an income of 50,000 dollars per year and are married with child or children in between the age range of 12 to 18 years. The younger women too falls under this segment who has a good monthly income of over 45,000$ and owns a house of their own.

The purchase making of the customers are not only influenced by the internal and the external influences but are also effected by the kind or type of purchases that they make (Plouffe et al., 2016). They face with purchase decision making almost every day but it is to note that not all the decisions are been treated similarly. There are some decision that are comparatively more complex than the other and some requires more effort from the part of the customers. On the other hand, the other decisions are fairly routine and they need lesser efforts. However, in general, the customers face four types of purchase decisions while buying a particular thing (Djafarova and Rushworth, 2017). They are as follows:

• Minor new purchase- Such type of purchase represents something new to a consumer but in the mind of the customers is not a very vital purchase in context to money, need and other related reasons such as their status within a community (Ghobadian et al., 2016). In case of Toyota Yaris, the type of purchase decision for this product is medium. This is because being youth, it is not budget friendly as youths basically engaged in academic activities and it is not possible for all of them buy this product in a single go as it is not pocket friendly.
• Minor re-purchase- These purchases are the most routine of all the other purchases and in this case, the customers often returns to buy the same product without giving much thought to the other available options of products (Vijaya Laxmi and Rao, 2015). In other words, customers are loyal to a single product. Toyota has a significant number of fans and followers and many loyal customers as well. Hence, these customers would surely be thinking of Toyota before making their purchase decision from any other brand and they would be buying Toyota Yaris without giving much thought to the other options from different brands.
• Major new purchase- These are the most difficult of all the purchases as the product in this case are very important to the customers but the customers have very little or absolutely no previous experience of it (Demir, Turut and Uysal, 2018). Hence, it becomes very difficult for them to decide whether to buy or not. They lack in confidence while making this type of decision. This purchase decision compels them to engage in a very extensive process of decision making. Such type of customers finds it difficult to make decisions on buying Toyota Yaris as they had never experienced driving Toyota cars before.
• Major re-purchase- This type of purchase decisions are also very important to the customers because in this case, the customers feel confident enough in making the decision of purchase as they have earlier experience of buying the product. For buying Toyota Yaris, the youths are confident enough to make a purchase of it. This is due to the fact that this car is more attracting for the youths rather than the middle-aged person.

Identification of Target market and strategies used to attract them

For the marketers, it is very vital to understand how the customers treat the purchase decisions that they face. If a firm is targeting the customers who feel the purchasing decision making to be difficult (major new purchase), the marketing strategy of that firm might greatly vary from a firm that target the customers who consider the purchase decision as routine (minor re-purchase).

1. The online method of promoting the product is not very efficient and useful. It has been observed that television is the most effective medium of promoting Toyota Yaris. With the same, the print materials are perceived to have comparatively higher effectiveness in case of Toyota Yaris. Hence, it is suggested that the company should continue to invest more on traditional marketing method rather than modern one. It should focus on creating print advertisements along with the dependability, friendliness and practicality of the car.
2. Toyota Yaris could improve its web activities by controlling its brand image. It means that the brand need to be in the control of Toyota Yaris’ social media presence. The social media tactics of the Toyota Yaris have been successful but it is also to note that there is major room for the improvement. The company should start by creating page on Facebook for Toyota Yaris under the name of Toyota brand.
3. The company should hire some more experienced marketing professionals with the engagement of the different new aspects such as channels of communications and advertising. This involvement of many aspects would increase the cost of the company and with the same it would also start rendering some very significant returns if they are implemented in proper manner. However, the return on the marketing strategy could be expected after some time of the process of implementation because it takes time for implementing all the aspects of the marketing strategy.

Conclusion

Toyota is one of the best examples of the companies that have executed effective marketing strategies in the market. From the above analysis it could be concluded that the company has adopted some very successful system and have also developed customer oriented marketing structure. Toyota Yaris is one of its premium products that the company has launched very recently and its successfully implementing its several promotional and advertising strategies in order to spread its awareness among the customers. The section of marketing mix of Toyota indicates that the firm has a very comprehensive strategy in order to advertise Toyota Yaris. Right from making use of catchy slogans to using several different types of promotional strategies, Toyota is making use of numerous efficient strategies for successfully increasing the sales volume of Toyota Yaris as well as to attract its target market of young youths.

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