Marketing Company of Toyota Camry 2007 - Case Study Example

Running Head: Term Paper Marketing and Section # of Toyota Camry 2007 The product that has been chosen for this paper is the Toyota Camry 2007 model, the product has been marketed to the masses using various methods including print ads as well as television advertisements. Here is some background information on the company that owns the product, the Toyota Motor Corporation. Toyota The Toyota Motor Corporation was founded by kiichiro toyoda in 1937, the first ever car that was produced by the Toyota Corporation was its passenger car the Toyota AA, ever since its inception Toyota has never looked back, it is the largest automaker and has the highest sales in the US. Toyota globally employees around 320,000 people and have 522 subsidiary companies which includes its majority shareholding stake in Daihatsu and Hino Motors. It can be best described as a multi-national corporation which has its global headquarters in Japan; Toyota also has a financial services division and is also into robot productions. In 2007 the net annual sales of the Toyota Corporation equaled to $15, 911,886 whereas the total net assets of the company were $15, 336,578 and the net income for the Corporation in the year 2007 were approximately 60 Billion Japanese Yen. The net income per share was close to 200 Japanese Yen. Since the product has been chosen from the automobile wing of the Toyota Corporation, the different kinds of products that would be highlighted in this paper would be from the automobile wing of the company, as mentioned above the company is also into manufacturing of robots and provision of financial services. Some of the major automobiles that Toyota produces are Toyota Camry, Toyota Corolla, Toyota Prius (which is Toyotas hybrid car) and Toyota also owns Lexus and Scion brands but for marketing purposes or for differentiation purposes Toyota does not lend its name to these brands. The marketing environment for Toyota at the micro level is a very favorable one because it has built collaborative partnerships at all levels where it could possibly do so with its suppliers and that has helped Toyota in becoming the giant it is today, Toyota firmly believes in building partnerships with its suppliers rather than treating them as vendors for the supply of materials for the company. At the customer level Toyota has over the past few years become the favorite car brand and that is evident by the facts that it is the highest selling car in the US and is the world’s largest automobile manufacturer, Toyota has achieved this by delivering its brand promise for decades now and it has drastically improved upon the promise as well. Toyota is a company that is known for providing the very best to its customers and ensuring that they get what they want, a very important factor in this is the investment that Toyota makes in research and development, in the year 2007 Toyota spent close to 35 Billion Japanese Yen for this purpose, this shows that Toyota is committed to providing only the very best to its customers and nothing less. As for the stakeholders Toyota is totally committed to their cause as well and an income of approximately 200 Japanese Yen per share is a clear indicator of that, in addition to this Toyota is committed to not let down its stakeholders at any stage and this is evident in Toyotas strategy of community development and corporate social responsibility initiatives in places where it operates its plants, Toyota is totally committed to its stakeholders and the communities that it operates in. As for the macro environment in which Toyota operates one of the most notable factors is that Toyota is one of the leaders in technology, it embraces new technology and technological change whenever there is a need for one and Toyota is also known for being innovative when it comes to technology and hence is least threatened by technological changes; another aspect of such technological change is that the human resources at Toyota are totally capable of adapting to such changes and hence gives Toyota a definite competitive edge over its competitors when it comes down to swift changes in technology related matters. As for the economic factors present in the macro environment Toyota has a policy of having something for everyone, from the luxurious Lexus to the more mundane and much cheaper Toyota Yaris, Toyota recognizes the need for segmentation within the market and has been able to cater to it in a very successful fashion by producing cars with different price tags to cater to practically everyone under the sun, this is one of the major reasons that Toyota has become a house hold name all over the globe and is ranked as one of the top hundred brands by Millward Brown and Inter-Brand, the two most well known brand rating agencies in the world. Toyota takes into account the different socio-cultural factors and that is evident in the Toyota advertisements, Toyota has increasingly recognized that in different regions of the world the decision makers and the influencers are different and hence has been able to successfully target its advertising strategy keeping in mind the decision makers and the decision influencers and it also has a distinct emotional appeal in its advertising campaigns. On the political front there has not been much activity from Toyota but that is also a positive sign since it is not associated with any negatives like other multi-national giant corporations. All of the above mentioned factors point out that Toyota is an organization that is committed to its cause and at the same time is committed to deliver its brand promise at all levels, it is an organization with a vision and a goal and over the past few years it has done justice to its recently adopted tagline ‘moving forward’ because it has pushed and pushed hard to keep going forward even in this era of financial meltdown when other automobile manufacturers have faltered but Toyota is not flawless, in recent times there has been a drop in it profits but that has more to do with exogenous factors more than anything else. The product that has been chosen is the Toyota Camry and after the comprehensive coverage of the manufacturer the chosen brand has to be concentrated upon as well. Toyota Camry is priced in between $18,000- $28,000 and is one of Toyotas mid-sized sedans, it is one of Americas most favorite cars and can be purchased all across America from Toyota dealers. Some specifications of the car are 2.4 liter 4 cylinder VVTI engine, four wheel disk brakes with ABS, fully automatic interior i.e. power steering and power windows with central locking and is quite fuel efficient as well with a spacious interior to complement and to top it all it comes with a 5 speed automatic transmission and some versions have a 6 speed automatic transmission, another thing that is worth mentioning about the product here is that there is also a sports version Toyota Camry SE which is much more smoother in running because the suspension is of much better quality than the other versions of the car but that does not mean that the other versions have a low quality suspension system but in relative terms yes the SE has a better suspension system. SWOT analysis for this product can conducted but there is a need to define what the SWOT analysis basically is, Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunity and Threats, these are the four components of the SWOT analysis. The strengths for the Camry would be the advantages that it has over its major competitors, the weaknesses would be the points where the Camry is not up to the mark in comparison with its competitors, opportunities are where the Camry can improve upon and beat the competition and Threats to the Camry would be the advantages that competitors have over the Camry and how they can leverage those advantages to reduce the market share of the Camry globally. For comparison purposes the other two competitors that have been chosen are the 2007 Honda Accord 4 dr and the 2007 Hyundai Sonata 4 dr. Strength Weakness Opportunity Threat Camry has 3 different engine sizes available where as the competitors, Accord and Sonata have only 2 types of engine availability, this restricts consumer choice for the competitors Has no distinct advantages over competitors in terms of pricing and efficiency of the vehicles Can capture the global market through the use of effective marketing strategies Honda gaining momentum in the US markets Is rated much more stylish than the other two competitors Can tend to be on the higher side in terms of pricing The name of the parent company ‘Toyota’ renders it more credibility than the competitors Honda aggressively marketing its products Has more versions than the competition Toyota interiors have known to depreciate more faster than competitions Overcome complaints in a shorter time due to flexibility of Toyota Sonata is a relatively new competitor to the Camry and can gain momentum This is the SWOT model which basically compares the 2007 Camry to the same year Honda Accord and Hyundai Sonata. The marketing mix consists of four elements basically, they are, the product itself, the price of the product, the place where the product is available or can be purchased from and last but not the least the promotion of the product so that the customers know that the product is in the market and can be bought from specified locations. In case of Camry the product is the vehicle itself and as we have seen throughout the paper the product is a high quality mid-sized sedan from the largest manufacturer of automobiles in the world i.e. Toyota hence the product is of high quality and is very highly regarded not just because of the quality but because Toyota has consistently kept its brand promise over the years. The pricing policy is done with many factors in mind for example competition and the target market, the Camry scores pretty high with its pricing because it is priced almost the same as its competitors and is also a very appealing to the target market. Toyotas distributors are situated all over the US and globally the product is available without any issues in Toyota certified dealership stores and hence the customers know exactly where they need to go when they need to buy a Camry. As for promotions Camry has been promoted quite rigorously because of the immense competition that it is facing from Honda all over the world, Camry has had unveiling ceremonies whereby it has generated word of mouth and hype through the use of social or ‘free’ media such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. Print ads have also been used to promote the Camry, portraying it as a mid-sized luxury sedan, then there have been television ads for the product as well in which the specifications and the smoothness of the Camry have been highlighted and there is also an element of emotional attachment thrown into such ads as well. One of the major concerns though for Camry can be that there is growing competition within and outside of the United States and it would have to hold a distinct edge over its competitors to sustain the number one position and be the market leader in this category. Conclusion Camry is one of the finest cars that Toyota has produced in this category of cars but it has to realize that just producing this is not enough, it has to be vigilant and pro active in its approach to understand the trends of the global markets in the coming days and act accordingly. One of the immediate things that Camry needs is to hold a distinctive edge over its competitors and one way to achieve this edge is through collaboration with other brand or what is commonly known as co-branding, this will not only give Camry a distinctive edge over its competitors but customers would also be delighted at this wonderful effort by the world largest automobile producer. The product is now being upgraded and the 2010 version is to be launched in the near future and this version is going to be much more powerful than the 2007 Camry. References Book Kerin, R.A. (2004). Marketing:The Core. Zikmund, W.G. (1993) Marketing. West Publisher Co. Beckman, T.N. (1962) Marketing. Ronald press Website Msn/autos.msn.com/ (2007,May). 2007 Toyota Camry. February 19, 2010 , http://autos.msn.com/research/vip/overview.aspx?year=2007&make=Toyota&model=Camry Toyota/Toyota-Industries.com/(2007, March). Annual Report 2007. February 19, 2010 http://www.toyota-industries.com/ir/library/annual/2007/annual.html Read More