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Mercedes-Benz is a German based multi-national automobile brand. The brand belongs to the Daimler Chrysler Group which is a German based automobile manufacturer. The company is a well-established luxury car brand in the world with its manufacturing and assembly units in about 20 countries world. With its three top brand, highly skilled and qualified professionals, and its innovative and effective technologies, Mercedes leads the world market segment when it comes to luxury cars.
Its product line includes cars, trucks, busses, coaches, carriage vehicles and also features a ell-established sports car brand by the name of McAllen series. The brand stands for innovative, quality, modern and comfortable automobiles which have redefined the automobile standards in the luxury cars segment in the world (misunderstanding. Com, 2010). What follows is an analysis of the marketing strategies of Mercedes-Benz. The overall market of Mercedes-Benz Mercedes-Benz global target market is the upper class and the upper middle class.
This market is basically characterized by the representation of social status, and the fulfillment of actualization needs and self-esteem. As per the Moscow theory, there are 5 different types of need. People first go for the basic needs and then move towards the higher needs. Social status, self- actualization, safety and self-esteem compose those needs. Mercedes is striving to meet the high end needs of its consumer class (damper. Com, 2013). The marketing Mix Marketing environment has gone through a lot of change over the past few years in comparison to the past 50 years.
There has been a shift in their attitude and their behavior has become more complex. Their demand is now being defined with regards to the brands that are segmented in terms of their mage and quality (Pride & Farrell, 2008). The market mix stresses on mixing of different decision aspects in a manner that organizational and consumer objectives are met. The common variables of a marketing mix are price, product, promotion and distribution. Product Mercedes has been constantly expanding its product offer for meeting the new and diverse demand in its target market.
Currently there focus is on the premium segment and have added new and specialized products based on the customer specification. There are six categories of Mercedes products which includes Sedans, Convertibles, Wagons, Light Trucks, Roadster and Coupe. The cheapest segment in their product line is the C-Class Sedans. Over the recent years, Mercedes is now showing inclination towards being a more accessible brand for diverse customer segments. They are diversifying their range of cars to cater a wider customer segment (essays. Mom, 2014). Price This factor is based on the positioning strategy and Mercedes over the years has positioned itself as a high quality and premier car manufacturer. The high end market which they cater reflects in their pricing strategy and brand positioning. They have continued with the practice of price leadership and his reflects in their slogan of quality, comfort and safety. Promotion Advertising or promotion serves as an effective parameter for ensuring how the product is being projected to the target customer.
Mercedes over the years has used a comprehensive multi-channel approach strategy for its promotion. They first focused on the news media and television channels which were considered to be the basic and effective source of advertisement. However with the emergence of new platforms of communication like the online world or social media platforms, Mercedes has been to maintain a prominent presence on these platforms. There social media pages on Backbone and Twitter are serving as an effective source where they are in direct contact with their consumers (Lamb, 2011).
Prestige brands devote their effort and time for creating a personalized and high-touch experience for their consumers. An initiative which Mercedes has taken over the past few years is that they are using social media platforms for informing their consumers and for connecting with them. The Youth feed of the brand is not only being used for running campaign videos, but also for posting commercial events and behind the scene footages. The company has an active presence in Automobile trade shows and also advertises through its personal website and direct mails (Lamb, 2011).
Place or distribution Mercedes has a well-established distribution network throughout the world. The have officials distributors in all the high demand countries for this purpose. Conclusions and recommendations Considering the marketing strategy of Mercedes, it can be said that the company over the last few years has been very effective in how it projects Its products to its targeted customers. They are diversifying their marketing managing and it specifically show in their new marketing and growth strategy which has been termed as “Mercedes-Benz 2010 -Best Customer Experience”.
They are targeting to make the brand’s contact with its modern targeted customers more attractive and is proving quite effective. They are using innovative and differentiated sales formats which is in line with their aim to provide high quality and innovative products. They are using integrated marketing for new customer groups which is proving effective. You can take the example of the online campaign for the Mercedes-Benz A-class which they have mainly targeted towards the younger targeted segments.
The online activities alone have made it reach about 8 million customers who are interested in the product. They have also increased the physical contact Of the brand with the people. The A-Class Mercedes Benz campaign involved the tour of about 90 European cities where they formulated pavilions. This enabled about 25000 visitors to test drive the car. The company also found out that about 70 percent of the visitors they catered with their campaign were not driving Mercedes Benz and more than half of them has no injection with any sales person of the brand for the past many years.
Though their target market is still is the upper middle and the upper class which is rightly in line with the quality they provide, but they are now being more progressively innovative In enriching their target customers brand experience. They are also reaching the younger age group in their targeted customer segments and it is proving effective.