Tag Archives: product positioning

by | Monday, December 28, 2015 · 8:54 am

Car, Truck, and SUV of the Year

Car

Awards are a significant factor in any company’s arsenal of marketing and promotion tactics. Every company would love to claim that its product is the “best” in its category. And, awards carry great weight with consumers as they look for independent validation of a company’s claims. For automotive manufacturers, one of the year’s most coveted awards is Motor Trend magazine’s Car of the Year.

This year, the Car of the Year and Truck of the Year awards both go to GM’s Chevrolet brand with the Colorado as this year’s top truck and the Camaro as this year’s top car. Other finalists for Car of the Year included the Audi TT, BMW 7 Series, Honda Civic, Mazda MX-5 Miata, Mercedes-Benz GT S, and Toyota Mirai. Top contenders in the truck category also included the Chevrolet Silverado 1500, GMC Canyon, GMC Sierra 1500, Nissan Titan XD, and Toyota Tacoma.

For the SUV of the Year award, the magazine choose the Volvo XC90. Other finalists in SUV category included the Honda Pilot, Lincoln MX, Mercedes-Benz GLE-Class, and Nissan Murano.

What are you driving?

Group Activities and Discussion Questions:

  1. Discuss the importance of product awards.
  2. What is the PR value for awards?
  3. View Motor Trend’s Car of the Year: http://www.motortrend.com/awards/best-car-of-the-year/
  4. Discuss how GM can use the report in its marketing.
  5. What should companies that didn’t make the top list do to promote their vehicles?
  6. Review key aspects of developing a product positioning map, including determining the axis labels for positioning.
  7. Divide students into teams and have each team develop a positioning map for a category of automobiles.

Source: Motor Trend, Manufacturing Business Technology

 

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by | Thursday, August 13, 2015 · 9:51 am

Computer that Cooks – Really, it Cooks

Oven

Question: What happened when former Apple engineers decide to reinvent the kitchen? Answer: They designed a computer that cooks (and named it June).

The June Oven is a computerized oven that recognizes food, determines how it should be cooked, and sends a text when the meal is done. It also includes a HD camera to show a live view of the oven interior so the cook can see the meal in progress. June has the guts of a smart phone, is connected to the Internet, and even includes digital recipes and meal planning.

June includes a built-in digital scale, unit conversion, kitchen timer, carbon fiber heating elements, dual-surround convention, core temperature probe, touch screen, and food id recognition camera. The product will be available in the U.S. in Spring 2016 and will cost $1,495. The kitchen will never be the same.

Group Activities and Discussion Questions:

  1. Discuss competition and product positioning.
  2. Show the video of June in action:

https://youtu.be/3twtQCGiido

  1. Bring up the June Oven Web site: https://juneoven.com/
  2. Divide students into teams. Have each team identify competing products and plot the competitors onto a positioning map.
  3. Debrief the exercise: determine how to market this product to the targets.

Source: Manufacturing Business Technology, CNN Money, Wall Street Journal, other news sources

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by | Thursday, April 30, 2015 · 4:48 am

The Slowest Selling Cars

File

Last month we wrote about the top cars as ranked by independent testing organization, Consumer Reports. Among the company’s top picks based on road tests, crash tests, and reliability were Tesla Model S, Subaru Impreza, Chevrolet Impala, Toyota Highlander, and Honda Odyssey. This month, let’s look at the cars that it appears no one (or at least very few) want to buy.

According to data from Kelley Blue Book, the average amount of time a car is on a dealer’s lot is 71 days, with some models selling in fewer than 15 days and other waiting 120+ days to sell. Which cars sold the slowest in 2014?

  1. Honda Insight, 170.7 days, units sold 3,965 ($18,725)
  2. Nissan GT-R, 169.9 days, units sold 1,436 ($101,770)
  3. Cadillac ELR, 158.6 days, units sold 1,310 ($75,000)
  4. Infiniti Q60, 158.3 days, units sold 7,740 ($40,950)
  5. Buick Verano, 144.7 days , units sold 43,743 ($23,380)
  6. Cadillac XTS, 144.6 days, units sold 24,335 ($44,660)
  7. FIAT 500L, 140.1 days, units sold 12,413 ($19,195)
  8. Volvo XC90, 139.5 days, units sold 3,952 ($48,900)
  9. Kia Cadenza, 138.8 days, units sold 9,267 ($35,100)
  10. Cadillac ATS, 138.1, units sold 29,890 ($33,215)

High turnover does not necessarily mean that a car is absolutely popular or unpopular, but instead implies that it was popular or unpopular relative to the expectations of the manufacturer. For example, while there were more than 43,000 Buick Veranos sold last year, Buick probably anticipated higher demand, thus overstocking which resulted in an average of 144 days to turn the car.

Group Activities and Discussion Questions:

  1. Discuss the issues associated with sales forecasting and manufacturing.
  2. Before showing the video or discussing the slowest selling cars, poll students about the reasons why cars might sell slower than average.
  3. Show video: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2015/04/11/cars-americans-dont-buy/25602781/
  4. Divide students into teams. Assign each team one of the cars to research. Have them find out prices, number sold, locations for best sales, competitors, etc.
  5. Next, have students develop recommendations to lower the average days it takes to sell a model.

 

Source: Kelley Blue Book, USA Today, Manufacturing Business Technology

 

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