In: Operations Management
Consumer Behaviour Question
An article in Consumer Reports shows that, although Volvo is famous for its safety features, many young consumers still do not like Volvo because of its conservative brand image. Based on the multi-attribute attitude model, please explain three most appropriate strategies that managers can use to improve consumers’ overall attitude towards Volvo cars? Your answers should relate to Volvo cars and the multi-attribute attitude model.
Brand positioning
Despite great diversity in the respondents‟ interest and age, we
perceived a relatively
important cohesion in the answers that brings a global judgment of
Volvo by our French
population. We first saw that only a few people have had a Volvo
however no one possesses
one currently. To begin with, Aaker (1996), Blattberg and Deighton
(1996), Keller (2008), Bick (2009) and
so many other researchers wrote about brand equity and customer
equity. As explained in our
theoretical framework, brands check by this process the place they
have in the customer's mind
and if these ones are reactive to the marketing set up around them.
The authors speak about
“brand name awareness” and “perceived quality”, and so when we
compare the most
an important factor to choose a car and the one which would be made
an individual buy a Volvo, we
distinguish differences in the order of criteria due to Volvo brand
image whereas the first
question is asked generally about all types of car. Thus we notice
that design which was the
a most important factor of choice for any car – and which is not
surprising as for French people
it is essential – drops to the fourth place when it comes to Volvo,
price which was second falls
until the seventh/eighth position; and on the contrary, some other
features rise such as safety
and comfort that gains a place each coming in second and third
position in the Volvo selection,
or space and size which were the least decisive factors when opting
for a car and which
attained the fifth/sixth rank – practicality – in the Volvo range –
may be
because in their mind,
Volvo is bigger than usual cars and so practicality is more
important. We can assert so that
indeed brand image and equity influence the way consumers buy or
intent to buy as they
change their priorities in a view of something special as
demonstrated with Volvo.
Some brands believe that “it is more profitable
to treat certain groups of consumers differently than to treat them
all alike”. In other words, a
brand sometimes has to adapt to different groups of people to
remain profitable. In our case
Volvo cars, Swedish car manufacturer, needs to adapt to French
people if it wants to attract
and satisfy them as customers who have different expectations than
the Swedish ones.
Therefore, if Volvo does not need to modify its products to adapt
to the French market, the
way of reaching the French potential customers might vary due to
their different priorities
when buying a car. This is the reason why Volvo must spot the
differences in consumer
behavior in order to adjust its initial marketing strategy to the
country, and modify it
according to whether the first results of these adjustments are
positive or negative.
In this section, we are going to focus on the adaptation of Volvo
Cars‟ marketing strategy in
France compared to Sweden, and analyze what are the similarities
and differences.
We may add that the size of Volvo cars has been mentioned as an
obstacle to buy one by
many Parisians since it is easier to have a smaller car to be able
to find a parking spot.
Therefore, we would suggest Volvo to start developing a range of
smaller car – as they have
already started to do with the C30 – following the example of
Mercedes (with the class A or
the Smart) or BMW (with the Mini Cooper).
Concerning the channels of communication, we saw that people in
both Sweden and France
were more sensitive to visual stimuli. Therefore, we would
recommend advertising on
television, on the Internet, but also in free newspapers – in
France, in Paris at least, everybody
reads them in the metro which makes it a good way for a brand to
increase its visibility – and
on billboards - in the metro, at bus stops, or in the
streets.
Volvo Cars should also communicate more about the events they
sponsor since it is a good
way of attracting clients and/or develop their loyalty to the brand
through identification with
its values – as we saw, brands usually sponsor events corresponding
to their values and their
positioning.