Question

Please analyze below by answering ALL questions. Your discussions should apply the marketing communication theories, target market, brand positioning, and marketing mix principles

1. Explain the importance of the strapline that embodies the essence of the brand.

2. Discuss the following for a brand like BMW:

a) Importance of clear positioning in the marketplace.

b) Changing nature of the communications mix.

c) Potential limitations of online activity such as social media.

High involvement with BMW – the Ultimate Driving Machine again

This case illustrates how BMW has moved back to its successful strapline – ultimate driving machine – after a brief dalliance with its ‘Joy’ campaign, although BMW maintains that ‘joy’ was part of the ultimate driving machine and experience anyway. BMW’s target market, involvement, potential tension between performance fuel economy and the changes in the media and communications mix used are also considered. The Strapline BMW has returned, in North America at least, to its long-running strapline – the Ultimate Driving Machine – which is nearly 40 years old as BMW gears up to dominate the North American automobile market at the high end. In terms of the marketing communications tools required to achieve this, television advertising has been, once again, a key ingredient. Henry (2012) suggests that BMW is still indeed ‘The Ultimate Driving Machine’ and that in fact it always has been. “A recent TV ad says, ‘We don’t make sports cars. We don’t make SUVs. We don’t make hybrids. We don’t make luxury sedans. We only make one thing: The Ultimate Driving Machine”. This is a statement of the obvious. “Yet the tagline is a touchy subject inside BMW. For BMW came up with what eventually became a worldwide ad campaign called ‘Joy’ in time for its sponsorship of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, Canada. The idea was to reinforce the user benefit of owning The Ultimate Driving Machine. BMW never entirely abandoned ‘Ultimate Driving Machine’ but the ‘Joy’ campaign started a public uproar that BMW was turning its back on one of the best taglines ever” (Henry, 2012). The Target BMW models have been targeted at customers who want luxury, the latest technology and the latest in design. These are customers who are willing to pay a premium price for a very desirable brand. There are, however, a range of target customers including independent, private buyers but also those who are corporate customers who influence the purchase of executive, luxury cars. The latter consist of top executives, business leaders and decision makers from many companies around the world. The target market can be said to be made up of particular types who have certain characteristics, for example who read business magazines and broadsheet newspapers and who watch television news programmes for insights and ideas on trends in relevant sectors and markets including financial and product issues such as high end products and services like a BMW. These are:  Top/senior executives, ther professionals and investors  Middle management and sales executives who are decision makers and who would influence the car purchase within their companies.  Other expert decision makers who are also influencers on the purchase process.  Affluent individuals with high disposable incomes  SME (small to medium sized enterprise) owner-managers and directors. These types of potential customer are likely to be highly involved customers with the BMW brand. They expect quality, luxury and performance from such a high end brand.

The dilemma that BMW faces is the notion that high performance vehicles might not be seen as fuel-efficient or vice-versa, i.e. if a car is seen as fuel efficient and therefore good for the environment (some might say better for the environment at best), then it will not be seen as dynamic. Certainly the way BMW sees it, it does not matter which model of BMW that is in focus since all BMWs are ultimate driving machines, so that in other segments of the marketplace, say small cars, the BMW positioned there will be an ultimate driving machine, as a premium brand and a great product with high credibility and authenticity. The dilemma that BMW faces is the notion that high performance vehicles might not be seen as fuel-efficient or vice-versa, i.e. if a car is seen as fuel efficient and therefore good for the environment (some might say better for the environment at best), then it will not be seen as dynamic. Certainly the way BMW sees it, it does not matter which model of BMW that is in focus since all BMWs are ultimate driving machines, so that in other segments of the marketplace, say small cars, the BMW positioned there will be an ultimate driving machine, as a premium brand and a great product with high credibility and authenticity.

The Media Given the profile of the various types of potential customer the chosen media for the BMW brand includes traditional as well as non-traditional, newer digital forms. Clearly the media chosen have to be capable of getting the message through to the target audiences. Each medium has to be suitable for each of the BMW products whether it be a 3, 5 or 7 series model, a SUV or sports car model bearing in mind that all are ‘ultimate driving machines’. BMW still needs to attract attention and create interest before other tools in the corporate and marketing communications tool box in conjunction with its dealership network can be used and be influential on the buying process, part of which is the evaluation of alternatives. Of course BMW does have competition and there are alternatives. By its very nature a BMW is a high involvement product. It has a high value but a BMW is much more than this whereby many other factors such as self-esteem and self-actualisation come into play. The potential customer will follow through on attention and interest by moving through the stages of the buying decision-making process and because of the extent of involvement a lot of information will be sought before moving on to the next stage of the process.

Clearly the media values need to align with BMW values so that business magazines, broadsheet newspapers, billboards and certain television slots are traditional media contenders to be part of BMW’s media mix for advertising. Online activity is important in reaching new buyers. For example the BMW 118i Sport Line 5- door hatch for the European market is seen in a promotional video whereby “BMW claimed an 88 million-euro ($110 million) revenue gain for its 1-Series line by wooing customers with a web-only campaign.” Bloggers are seen as an important source of messages that are targeted at “a growing audience of would-be buyers who can’t be reached through TV and newspaper ads. The feedback from blog comments and Twitter feeds also flows back to affect styling and sales forecasts” (Webb, 2012). Social media appears important to BMW as an effective means to achieving ROI. Not only do BMW customers have a higher income and education levels but they also have high internet usage and BMW tripled internet advertising spending in Germany to 1.3 million euros in 2012, but this was still behind Audi’s 3.3 million euros and Mercedesparent Daimler’s 3.7 million euros (Webb, 2012). However television spending was still much higher and for Webb the “move to scrap ads on Facebook (FB)” (by General Motors during 2012) “reflect the web’s limits”. For the present, at least this kind of online activity by luxury car marketers appears to be a supplement to the television medium. Other Communication Tools The rest of the communications mix is tailored by BMW in conjunction with its dealer networks as would be expected. Even for a brand like BMW, sales promotion has to be a consideration. Sales promotion offers additional value and since price deals are unlikely, additional incentives such as test drives, brochures and web activity, for example videos on its YouTube channel, during the buying process can add value. PR at both product and corporate levels is a must in order to manage image and reputation and direct marketing is a useful part of the BMW communications activities, especially in getting potential customers to test drive. Personal selling plays an important role in BMW’s communications mix, especially in relation to the dealership networks.

Answer 1

1)Straplines or in lame language, we can say taglines are crucial because these one-liners captures the essence of the of a brand or an organization.It can be said as a way to differentiate one's product with others.BMW positioned itself in automobile sector as both LUXURY and PERFORMANCE. It's Strapline "The Ultimate Driving Machine" clearly captures the essence of it's brand :Luxury performance car.A strapline is said a s something that defines the organization in basically three perspective:a)Communication-means able to clarify what is unique about it,b)Simplify -means the strapline should be such that it is memorable and comes out of the mouth of people by just seeing it like the NIKE strapline"Just do It",c)Inspire:It should stake out ground that it must be meaningful and relevant.

2)Important of clear Positioning in the market place:

All marketing strategy is built on Segmentation,targeting and positioning that is (STP).Positioning is said as an act of designing a company's offering and image to occupy a distinctive place in the minds of the customer or target market. Positioning help an organization to make target market recognize it's distinctive offerings and images.Hence in short we can say that the goal of positioning is to place the brand in the minds of the target customer to maximize potential benefit to an organization.Like in this case BMW positioned it self as both Luxury and Performance car in the minds of it's target customer.BMW with it's positioning was able to achieve a point of difference on luxury and a point of parity on performance with respect to it's competitors and was abel to effectively capture the market of performance luxury cars.This is said as straddle positioning.

b)Changing nature of the communications mix:

Communication mix is said a methods that are being used to promote a company or it's product.Marketing communicating if di=one right pays huge pay off's.BMW is not a brand that is being purchased by every individual.It is class vehicle that belong to a class hence it's communication should be such that it reflcets that class in it otherwise it can even hamper it's image.Since the market of these people are mainly those who are active on social media like blogging flatform or who are more into magazines hence the communication channel should be such so that the right consumer is exposed to the right message and make the customer pay attention on what's being displayed.Hence there is evolution in BMW's communication mix now it is spending more on online presence rather than offline.Personel communication or selling is more advantageous in getting customer and dealers.

c)Potential limitations of online activity such as social media.

BMW is a high involvement product and it's target customer are basically those people who at at the high end of their profession.These people generally lack time though their presence can be felt online but yet how much time would they devote is a big question.It's very esay to skip a thing on social media.PErsonalised attention is very much required and if the advertisment is not appealing their are chances that even a high end automobile like BMW will akip ou of the mind of the people.Extent of involvement is a major limitation of social media activity.