Current Situation and Objectives

Question:

Discuss about the Political Sustainability of Climate Policy.

The aim of the paper is to study marketing plan of an environment friendly product. The paper starts with an analysis of the current situation of the sustainable automobile manufacturing followed by marketing objectives. The next section studies the target market of the product, namely an electric car.  This is followed by marketing strategies followed by marketing implementation, budget and evaluation and control.

The rising demand for sustainable modes of transport like electric car in Australia due to increase in environmental concern among the consumers are creating strong background for expanding market of sustainable modes of transport like electric cars. The advancement of automobile manufacturing, innovation and entry of multinational automobile manufacturers are triggering market growth of electric cars (Moons and De Pelsmacker 2015). The increasing legal and social pressures on the automobile industry to achieve sustainability in production are also

Environmental analysis of the market of sustainable methods of transport shows that it is impacted by several political, economic, social and technological factors. The political factors consist of government policies and laws made by the government of Australia like the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. An analysis of these acts shows that they mandate the automobile industry to shift towards more environmental friendly and sustainable methods of production (Kivimaa and Kern 2016).

The economic environmental factors affecting the automobile industry are rise in per capita income in Australia, increasing profitability in the Australian automobile market due to entry of multinational automobile companies and available of resources like human resources, capital and raw materials. An analysis of these economic factors shows that they are interdependent and related each other (Lippiatt 2017). The increase in per capita income among Australians has made more disposable income available to the people and they are ready to spend on expensive cars which pumping revenue into the automobile industry. This increase in revenue generation in the automobile industry and availability of resources have attracted multinational automobile companies which is encouraging research and innovation towards manufacturing of sustainable electric cars (Lockwood 2013) Thus, the favourable economic environment in Australia is driving the sustainable automobile production.

The increase in the per capita income and preference for sustainable modes of transport are acting as important social environmental factors driving the expansion of electric cars in Australia. The technological factors like advancement of automobile manufacturing technology, advent of knowledge management system using cloud computing and social media between the companies and the consumers and more scientific waste management facilities are the technological factors, which are triggering expansion of sustainable automobile market in Australia (Mowforth and Munt 2015).

Environmental Factors Affecting Sustainable Automobile Market

An analysis of the market of sustainable automobile market shows that it is experiencing high demand for environment friendly vehicles. The market has presence of multinational companies like Tesla and Nissan, which has made the market severely competitive.

A customer analysis shows that customers prefer environment friendly modes of transport like electric car. The increase in their income allows them to spend more towards purchase of expensive sustainable vehicles (Kushwaha and Sharma 2016).

The financial objectives of the electric car manufacturing companies like Nissan and Tesla are to increase their sales and net profits by manufacturing more electric cars and catering to the expanding customer base for the product. This increase in profits would allow them to gain more return on the robust investment they inject into manufacturing and innovations of electric cars (Li et al. 2016).

The electric car manufacturing companies seek to market their products in new markets to create more customer awareness. They acquire larger numbers of dealers and distributors to cater to the new markets and generate maximum revenue (Zeriti et al. 2014).

The other stakeholder objectives of the automobile companies manufacturing electric cars are to achieve sustainability by operating in environment friendly ways like reducing their waste emission and management of wastes. They also aim to benefit the community by increasing awareness about environmental protection and participating in sustainability projects (Hörisch, Freeman and Schaltegger 2014).

The financial objectives like increasing profits are specific, measurable, attainable and can be achieved in 1 year. However, achieving a high rate of return on investment (ROI) is dependent on various factors market expansion, which would take more than a year. The effectiveness of the marketing objectives can be measured by analysing the increase in profits due to the increase in marketing activities. The other stakeholders’ objectives like reduction of environmental pollution cannot be measured quantitatively. They would take a long period like five years. Total reduction of pollution is not achievable but the manufacturers can invest in specific sustainable manufacturing methods like installing carbon-trapping chimneys to reduce pollution (Boiral and Henri 2017).

The target market of the electric cars can be segmented based on demography and psychography. The demographical consumer segmentation consist of middle and upper class consumers who sufficient disposable income to invest in expensive sustainable electric cars. The psychographical segmentation consists of consumers who are conscious about the environment and prefer expensive environment friendly electric cars compared to their cheaper counterparts running on petrol or diesel (Firat, Turker and Metin 2014).

Customer Analysis

The needs of the rich and the environment conscious target market are environment friendly modes of transport like electric cars. They also demand high quality, fuel efficiency and cost effectiveness from the car manufacturers. These two customer segments are the present users who use cars by multinational companies.  The competitive manufacturers in the sustainable automobile market are multinational companies like Nissan, Chevrolet and Hyundai (Shukla, Banerjee and Singh 2016).

It can be recommended that the automobile manufacturing companies should target to market their expensive electric cars based on demographic segmentation and market their products among the middle and upper class customers. This is because the upper class customers have sufficient disposable income to buy these expensive products. The companies manufacturing electric cars can gain further information about the needs of the upper class customers using primary and secondary marketing research. The primary marketing research consists of surveys, questionnaires and interview of customers both online and offline. They can also gain information about customer preferences from secondary sources like newspaper articles, magazines and from other marketing firms (Dion and Borraz 2017).

The positioning statement of the car manufacturing companies to differentiate their products from their competitors to attract the affluent customer segment in the market and occupy high market position is as follows:

The product would be electric car which would combine advanced technology and sustainability to give the consumer superior driving experience. The companies would also provide services like financing and after sales services.

The sustainable electric car as a product would have three layers, core product, actual product and the augmented product. The core product would be the comfort and value addition to their investment. The actual product is the car while the augmented product consists of services like financing and after sales services (Shukla, Banerjee and Singh 2016).

It is recommended that the electric car manufacturers must brand, package and label their products strategies. They must extend their product line and strengthen their product mix to gain more competitive advantage.

The electric manufacturers must conduct internet marketing to develop an efficient customer service department. They must acquire, motivate, train and reward customer service staffs to ensure they achieve degree of customer service and satisfaction by meeting customers’ expectations (Kushwaha and Sharma 2016).

The customer service staff should be trained to serve using advanced systems like information systems and queuing systems. This will ensure they serve customers efficiently to match diverse customer expectations.

Financial Objectives

The electric car manufacturing companies like Nissan and Chevrolet should have exterior facilities like gardens and parking facilities. They should have sophisticated interior designing of their customer service areas like appropriate lighting systems, sober and sound systems. They sound systems should help the customers to hear the announcements made to them from the customer service desks (Atwal and Williams 2017).

The pricing strategy used by the companies like Nissan and Chevrolet should be status-quo oriented and the price strategy should be skimming. This is because the electric cars are luxury products whose target customer segment is the rich and upper class customers.

The car manufacturing companies should promote their electric car products aggressively using advertising, public relations, personal selling, sales promotion, internet marketing and selling through outlet.

The automobile companies should market electric cars and the target completion date should be two years. The accounts departments should allocate sufficient funds so that they can market the products in eco-friendly ways to boost its socially responsible image.

Figure 2. Graph showing increase in profit in 5 years

(Source: Author)

The car manufacturing companies should monitor their marketing activities to ensure high sales and return on investments. They should market their products to create brand awareness about their products among a large consumer base to gain large market share and market penetration. They should offer high quality and environment friendly high products to ensure customer satisfaction.

Conclusion:

It can be summarised that the electric car market is a revolutionary product of the automobile industry. The product would combine advanced technology and sustainability. They should market their products aggressively in the market to attract the rich upper class and sell these cars to them at high prices. This result in earning of high revenue which the can direct to introduce low priced model in the market. This will allow them to cater to the lower class customers using their low price variants. Thus, these companies would be able to cater to both high and low segment customers.

References:

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