Marketing Communication Plan of Land Rover - Coursework Example

Marketing Communication Plan Table of Contents Land Rover 3 Future Challenges 6 SOSTAC Framework 6 Factors behind Planning of Marketing CommunicationPlan of Land Rover 8 Markets 10 Marketing Communication Plan of Land Rover 10 SMART Objectives 11 Budget 12 13 Marketing Mix of Land Rover 13 Analysis of Current Marketing Plan 15 Conclusion 16 References 17 Marketing Minefield, No Date. The Cost of Radio Advertising. Radio Advertising. [Online] Available at: http://www.marketingminefield.co.uk/traditional-marketing/radio-advertising/costs.html [Accessed July 8, 2010]. 17 Marketing Minefield, No Date. Newspaper and Magazine Advertising Costs. Traditional Advertising. [Online] Available at: http://www.marketingminefield.co.uk/traditional-marketing/print-advertising/costs.html [Accessed July 8, 2010]. 17 Bibliography 18 Land Rover History behind the Land Rover’s exceptional success from the day it was incepted has been the exceptional performance of the management and strategies adopted by them. Its production has always been customer oriented backed by efficient result oriented real time research. It has an excellent management with a visionary marketing team who believes on thinking different and being ahead of competition. The team is aware of the marketing channels that can profit them more in terms of level of liquidity, goodwill and customer loyalty. Land Rover originated in 1948 with focused vision and mission of creating revolution in automobile industry. It is owned by Ford that has been one of the largest American automobile companies. The company is mainly focused on manufacturing 4*4 model car which can match every individual’s expectation both in comfort as well as adventure in one that can sustain in every terrain. It started it journey with an agriculture based vehicle which was renowned by the name Land Rover. In 1970, it came out with its first Range Rover. It was the first civilized vehicle manufactured by Land Rover keeping in mind the customers’ comfort. The models of the brand are the result of efficient customer insight and extensive research done by Land Rover. The car has been famous as a luxurious and fashionable 4*4 car. Market segment is one of the most important considerations for marketing communication. Since, Land Rover is a luxurious car; it is mostly focused on high income communities who have the means and the passion towards cars. Looking at its 4*4 feature, it is segmented under family car version of cars and its main target customers will be big old age personalities with family because it is they, who give importance to family and have time for them to be together and wish to travel together. They are also a segment who mostly gives high preference to comfort and quality then looks and fashion. Land Rover provides comfort, quality and luxurious status to its customers. The globalization has its impending effect on Land Rover that had many positive and negative effects for the company. Most important had been the fierce competition that started in the decade of 80’s. Its first competition was with Japanese automobile company like Mitsubishi and their manufactured general utility cars followed by BMW and many others. Land Rover had a whole lot of models that started with the name Land Rover itself followed by discovery in Freelander, discovered in 1989, a small special utility vehicle for low cost preferred customers and Range Rover Sports in 2005. At present, Land Rover focuses on its 4 sub brands named Defender which is a utility car, luxury car named Range Rover, Defender for mid-range car for all terrain and Freelander. Automobile market of the car segment in United Kingdom is facing decline form year of 2002. Land Rover has also been affected by the sales volume. Reasons behind this decline comprise of increasing petrol price, global effect, a negative publicity faced by automobile industry from public relation groups and changing customer trends towards buying a car. Land Rover adopted indirect selling strategy for its products and services in United Kingdom. Franchises were the link between their customers and them. Essential measures like marketing communication planning and channel selection are essentially conducted by franchises. Land Rover faces many issues like high monitoring cost because of its cars high fuel consumption level and introduction of congestion charging for reducing traffic volume. There have been governmental steps in United Kingdom towards reducing carbon footprint. For the purpose, the company faced increased tax rates on fuels and cars based on their type, composition and CO2 specification. Also, the implementation of excise duty on car’s CO2 specification matched with environmental specification. Other major issue that Land Rover faces is from its pressure groups. These groups were mainly focused on erasing existence of 4*4 cars from the market. In order to fight with all these issues efficiently and effectively so that the goodwill can be maintained, the company adopted various strategies. It has diversified it’s focused from just being customer friendly to customer as well as environment friendly products. It has also implemented integrated marketing activities in order to have effective branding above all other competing brands. Car market of United Kingdom is highly competitive in nature. It has many big brands and all are investing hugely on promotional activities to make their marketing communication effective and result oriented. UK car market faces competition not only from new models but also form old and used cars. Integrated marketing consists of different channels of advertising and promotional activities. It is very vital for capturing target customers’ mind and faith with loyalty. Land Rover uses diversified tools for marketing like public relations, direct marketing, and advertisement through different media which includes television, outdoor, radio, print, and e- media like websites, email, newsletters, large exhibitions and trade shows. Future Challenges A successful marketing plan should comprise of the challenges that the company might face in future and the ways of coming out from such challenges. Globally, car manufacturers will face increased environmental pressures, lowering cost of cars and rising motoring cost. In this post – recession period, Land Rover needs to focus on the cost effective models as people might not be comfortable to purchase luxury cars. Also, it needs to have due regard towards the environmental issues as well as ever increasing competition. SOSTAC Framework SOSTAC framework is quite important for the purpose of marketing plan. It comprises of the six factors: Situation: Global heavy competition, changing customer trends towards low cost luxury cars, changing governmental regulations towards environmental friendly products for reducing carbon footprints are few of the impending factors of present situation. Objectives: Plan an integrated marketing mix for increasing global brand identity, increasing both bottom level and top level, matching the changing trend and expectation of customer and environment both. Strategies: Utilising departmental application of research and development as path towards success. Innovating customized products that are economic and environment friendly for meeting should be involved in the strategies. Mass media advertising can be another strategy for brand awareness. Tactics: Land Rover is coming up with new technology that can convert its product into environment friendly vehicles so that it can reduce carbon dioxide emission by 30 %. They call it as e-Terrain and have also implemented Starter- Generator system in new model of Freelander. It will help in automatically turning off of the engine on stationary mode and restarting it when ready to move. For positive publicity it invested huge amount in its corporate social activities which involves sponsoring organizations like The Royal Geographical Society, The China Exploration and Research Society and many more. Action: The marketing communication strategy planning is basically done by marketing department but its implementation fully depends on the top management of Land Rover who will approve this project. After approval, marketing part will be handled by marketing department head and research and development wing along with the production team. This plan will come into action as soon as it gets the approval from the higher authority. Control: Implementation of any plan will show positive results only when it is under effective control. Control includes prevention of wastage of resources, time, and work force skill. Control in work force will be looked after by human resource department, all inventory control will be done by the production department, innovations will be handled by research and development in collaboration with marketing department and advertising will be controlled by marketing department. In all of these steps, finance department plays a major part as efficient use of cash will be under purview of finance department. Also, because it’s a global mass media advertisement campaign, every region and every state should have their own relevant authorities to take their own decisions according to the situations. Factors behind Planning of Marketing Communication Plan of Land Rover Land Rover invests maximum among all automobile industry. It invest in all sorts of media but only investment is not enough what important is its effectiveness. The present situation that Land Rover is facing, being a very attractive luxurious car brand and having high prospects is because of its huge uncalculated non researched investments. Land Rover is very keen towards research for new innovations matching customers’ and markets’ changing trends. But in its step towards marketing, it only wants to be more reachable without researching its outcome. Land Rover should consider some issues before implementing any marketing communication plan. The competitor’s marketing strategy, research on the most effective media, channels that are short, clear and cost effective and most importantly re-engineering of the advertisements by looking at the clarity of messages to know that if customers are aware of what those messages mean and if the correct and full information being communicated. After analysis of media and advertisements, investment should be on those that suit the best. Also advertisements and media should suit the target market. It should be more appealing, top quality, clear but should communicate also luxury, status, pride and loyalty. Car market in which Land Rover deals with is a pull market, companies have to follow the trend but it can also be a push if companies come up with something very different, attractive, matching the unsaid need of any customer that can give them delightful experience with pride of being environment friendly and very specific quality and style. The company is planning to deal with middle class customers for who prefers value for money. For this type of market, they have to adapt pull marketing by providing them cheap luxury car with high quality so that their desire to look different, and be part of status, brand and quality gets fulfilled. Before planning marketing communication strategy, Land Rover should segment its target market according to country’s per capita income and its growth rate. It should then plan marketing strategy matching with those segments and the population they are targeting. In the marketing strategy, media like websites linked with advertising can be done through tie up with agencies dealing with e-news or newsletters, e-advertising can be done on all major websites and social networking sites and search engines like Yahoo, Rediff or Google. Sending email is also a good way of marketing but it should be specific not public otherwise, it will lose its status identity. Markets Land Rover’s existing target market is comprised of high end customers who have strong backing of finance. Large proportion of its target market is focused on retired and aged individuals who are fully family - oriented as well as luxury conscious. Due to the changing trends of the car customers toward low cost luxury cars, the research and development team of Land Rover is coming up with stylish and low cost luxury cars in the global market. The new target markets for Land Rover also comprise of the developing countries especially those are experiencing constant growth in its per capita income. Many of such segments already fall within the purview of the existing markets and the company is putting greater emphasis on such market as the new target markets. People in developing countries have shown high interest on new advance economical cars. All emerging countries are main target for its new version of economical plus luxury car of Land Rover. Marketing Communication Plan of Land Rover Advertisement in TV is most effective because it’s visual and people can feel its luxury and attraction but advertisement in radio is only to keep pinching brand in customers mind. If you are targeting high end market radio is ineffective but trade shows and its model display in films plays a big role. Where as if marketing lower end customers then outdoor medias, radio announcements, participation in TV shows or sponsoring TV shows helps a lot. Beside advertisement focusing on public relation is also important, full page advertisement in news papers, magazines and a column about company can help people know the brand, its advantages, its journey, and new innovations. It can also include company social responsibility activities. This will create a positive picture in peoples mind about the brand. Sponsor shows that will show about your company operations and will talk about its history, future events and most importantly its present quality management strategies and techniques it adopted to develop total quality management in company. SMART Objectives SMART objectives stand for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time. The main idea behind such objectives is that the objectives should be goal oriented and should be quantifiable. Also, the objectives should be easily achieved and should be bounded by time as it should also be realistic. Marketing communication plan of Land Rover will help give the company a reengineered reorganization in global industry. Its brand equity which consists of brand awareness, brand loyalty and brand positive perception will increase by 55% at the end of this year. This leads to future increment in sales and profit too. In the following accounting period, Land Rover will receive an increment of 25% on its sales and 18% on its profit in global market. The reason behind this will be its changed manufacturing strategy towards low cost efficient cars. It has pre established brand image and if it comes with low end cars people will believe in its quality without any extra effort and sales will rise. Second reason is that the automobile sale is rising in every country after long recession that the world faced. Demand is high in the market and it is required to grab the opportunity and Land Rover is doing the same. So its sale will rise. Budget Land Rover Marketing Communication Budget Media Time Period (Months) Cost per Minute Target Countries Total Cost (£ .000 b) Television 7 £4.16 per 1,000 adults per minute 20 1.7472 Radio 7 £2,000 per week per station 20 0.00112 Outdoor 12 £ 25 per m2 20 0.0009 New Paper 12 £30,000 for a full page colour ad two days in a week 20 0.1728 Magazines 12 £200 for a full-page per magazine per month 20 0.000144 Online Advertising 12 Radio Channel Websites £100 per 50,000 impressions per month 20 0.000024 Listing Advertisement £395 per annum per website 20 0.000079 Revolving Banner Ad £390 per 4 weeks per website 20 0.000936 Category Sponsorship 1st place £500 per month per website 20 0.0012 Featired Company £35per day per website 20 0.002555 Sponsoring Live Campaign 12 1500 per campaign 20 0.00036 Reserve 12 0.1 Total 12     2.027318 Assuming average targeted population of each targeted company is around 5,000, 000 Assuming Television Advertisement is advertised for 20 minutes in a day Assuming Outdoor banner sized total 36m^2 and average 50 banners per country Assuming News Paper and magazine advertisement for top 3 News Paper and magazines companies. Assuming online advertisement done in top 10 global websites (4RFV, n.d.), Marketing Minefield, n.d.), (Marketing Minefield, n.d.), (Grady, 2009), (ITV, 2010) Marketing Mix of Land Rover Marketing mix basically comprise of the effective allocation and utilization of product, price, place and promotion i.e. 4P’s. For Land Rover most important P is its Product. Products are predominantly the luxury cars with 4*4 features. The cars are manufactured with lots of research and market analysis, keeping in mind the unstated needs and desires of the customers. Land Rover range of cars starts from luxurious cars to sports car all very expensive and with top class quality and style. So, the target market basically involves high net worth customers. Marketing communication medium for them can be positive word-of-mouth, status symbol advertising, participation in big national and international events like FIFA World Cup, Olympics, award functions like Bookers Awards, Oscar Awards and many. If the product is for middle level customers then tie up with major banks for loan facilities, advertising in newspapers, magazines, and radios would be prudent. Outdoor advertising can attract both segments of customers or hosting a small reality shows and test drive can help. It should also open a medium using information technology from where they can get information about cars, and can also give their feedback on those. This will help to understand customers’ needs as well as competitors’ loop holes. For controlling all these activities internationally, the company should have an effective, trained and skilled workforce with a customer help centers at each target market. Nationally, at each targeted country, it should tie up with agencies that can collect feedbacks and control the media and channels. For this, they can have intermediaries like authorized dealers, agencies and also governmental agencies. At the servicing centers, they should have a system where customer can write their feedback and that can be automatically stored in centralized server. Information technology infrastructure should be centralized for proper control on information but each country heads should have own power of authority for their positional decision making activities. Analysis of Current Marketing Plan Marketing plan of Land Rover is based on its divided market segments in between high end customers and middle level customers. For high end customers, the marketing communication should communicate and symbolize status, frame, luxury and a big brand name. Land Rover has developed an effective unbeatable luxurious status and brand among people from its day of initiation. In current market plan for high end customers, marketing strategy calls for television advertisement, sponsorship of events and shows where big personalities gather like award functions and sporting events. The new products of Land Rover are planning to attract the middle level customers in emerging and developing countries. So, brand awareness is a top most priority for them. Therefore, the analysis suggest that such group of customers can be attracted through television advertisements, radio announcements, outdoor events and promotions, news papers and magazine articles. It can be said without hesitation that the company has to invest considerable amount of capital in advertisement media because of its shrinking market, heavy competition both on global as well as local perspectives as well as because of global market effects. Conclusion Land Rover is known for its luxurious cars that mainly target the high end customers. Presently, it is also concentrating on environment friendly cars and low cost cars for meeting the changing trends in the market. The marketing communication plan is a multi lateral plan with vast investment in all channels of advertising in order to brand its product globally and to strengthen its core competencies. References 4RTV, No Date. Ad Rates. 4RFV. [Online] Available at: http://www.4rfv.co.uk/ [Accessed July 8, 2010]. Grady, S. O., 2009. Cost of TV ads falls to lowest in decades as recession bites. The Independent. [Online] Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/cost-of-tv-ads-falls-to-lowest-in-decades-as-recession-bites-1699462.html [Accessed July 8, 2010]. ITV, 2010. Cost of Advertising. Advertising on ITV. [Online] Available at: http://www.itvmedia.co.uk/advertising-on-itv/cost-of-advertising [Accessed July 8, 2010]. Marketing Minefield, No Date. The Cost of Radio Advertising. Radio Advertising. [Online] Available at: http://www.marketingminefield.co.uk/traditional-marketing/radio-advertising/costs.html [Accessed July 8, 2010]. Marketing Minefield, No Date. Newspaper and Magazine Advertising Costs. Traditional Advertising. [Online] Available at: http://www.marketingminefield.co.uk/traditional-marketing/print-advertising/costs.html [Accessed July 8, 2010]. Bibliography Ouwersloot, H. & Duncan, T. Integrated Marketing Communications. McGraw-Hill Education, 2008. Terence, A. S. Advertising, Promotion & Supplemental Aspects of Integrated Marketing Communications. Dryden Press, 2000. Woods, P. Land Rover: The Incomparable 4x4 from Series 1 to Defender. Iconografix, Inc., 2006 Read More