Marketing Strategy and Plan for Tesla and Uber

This report discusses the marketing strategies and challenges faced by Tesla and Uber, including brand repositioning, production and delivery issues, autopilot safety concerns, and driver behavior. It also explores future challenges such as debt, taxes, and dynamic pricing.

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Marketing Strategy and Plan
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Marketing Strategy and Plan
Introduction
Tesla, ink is an American, international corporation which was founded in 2003 in Delaware,
U.S... Tesla, Inc. was formerly known as tesla motors and is based in Palo Alto, California. The
following company’s main forte is producing electrical vehicle and other products like, solar
panels, lithium- ion battery energy storage, and many more. Tesla’s headquarters are situated in
Palo Alto. Tesla is an automotive industry and the type of industry is public. Elon Musk is the
CEO and the chairman of the company. According to 2017 estimates, the production output of
the company is 101,312 vehicles. Total assets of the company values around US$ 28.655 billion
according to 2017 estimates (Schmidt, Spann & Zeithammer, 2014). And the net Inc.ome
estimated in 2017 was, US$1.961 billion. There are total 37,543 employees are working under
telsa according to 2017 survey. Tesla Inc.ludes few subsidiaries as well such as, Tesla Grohmann
Automation and solar city. According to the CEO of Tesla, the company is a technology
company which is also an independent automaker. The company offers cars which can be easily
afforded even by the average consumers. Model S was one of the best selling plug- in car of the
company in both years 2015 as well as 2016. In 2017 tesla released Model 3. Company changed
its brand name from tesla motors to Tesla Inc. along with the market repositioning. During the
brand repositioning, Tesla decided to choose to compete with the high end market instead of
competing with companies like, Toyota Prius, chevy volt or other electric vehicles etcetera
(Jiang, Starkie & Raskutti, 2014). Tesla launched a luxury sports electrical model which valued
more in terms of economy than the structure and functionalities. Tesla uses the best technology
and targets mainly the affluent buyers. The latest model of the Tesla that is model 3 is mainly
aimed at such a segment with higher volume (Moses, 2015).
UBER- UBER was founded back in 2009 by Garett Camp. UBER offers different kind of
services like, taxi, cabs, bicycles, food delivery etcetera. Basically UBER is a “transportation
network company”. Around 785 metropolitan cities with millions of services are served by
UBER. UBER’s headquarters are present in San Francisco, California. UBER has brought a
great revolution in this industry that it has been named as “ UBERisation”. UBER offers so many
transportation services and uses the app to make the journey convenient. Industry type is private
(Turban,Outland, King, Lee, Liang & Turban, 2018).CEO of UBER is Dara Khosrowshahi.
UBER can be operated directly from the website or the app. Main services of this company

Marketing Strategy and Plan
Include delivery and vehicle for hire. Total asset value of UBER is around US$15.7 billion
according to 2016 estimates. More than twelve thousand employees work for UBER. UBER’s
services have different levels and types according to the customer’s requirement. Many discounts
and offers are provided by UBER to gain the bigger customer base (Palmatier & Sridhar, 2017).
Due to some complications with other brand, UBER decided to reposition its brand logo and
some other marketing strategies. UBER decided to reposition the brand in such a way that
encourages the improvement of the company along with adding new technological features.
Tesla’s case Includes so many factors due to which tesla’s stocks got affected and
brought tesla on the verge of breaking down. Due to less interest of the CEO of tesla in the
questions asked by analysts, there has been a huge controversy which shook the investors in a
way. That situation led to dropping the stock of the company about 6%. Stocks of the company
are still down by the 25% of its 52 week high (Jiang, Starkie & Raskutti, 2015).
High- volume mass production volume strategy is one of the market strategies that is used by the
company but this time they failed to fulfill the orders and delayed the delivery of Model 3
(Campbell, 2017). The company’s main goal is to deliver the product within the time limit, but
they have failed miserably and has continually been criticized for not fulfilling the promises and
under-delivering.
Many other market strategy of the company seems to be failing because there are so many
investigations are going on in the Tesla Inc. right now (Banerjee & Banerjee, 2017). Their
autopilot system is being checked and they have been sued and charged for many things by many
different peoples. On the other hand national labor relations board also filed some charges
regarding the unfair labor practices. This has been a really big problem for tesla currently.
on a positive note, the strategy of tesla going after high end market has been really proven as
successful because of it’s latest model, Model 3. Model 3 has so many great features like, voice-
activated controls, base prices are moderate, come with technology such as autopilot assistance,
have sleek aesthetics and comes with captivated car geeks. Model 3 was even named as car of
the year by popular mechanics.
With this great featured car, company seems to be lacking according to their production
target. Only 2600 cars per week have been produced till now when there was an estimation of

Marketing Strategy and Plan
20,000 cars per month. In the first 3 months of 2018, there has been a loss of 785$ million by the
company on the revenue of 3.5 billion dollars. Company thinks of model 3 as a way to fulfill
their debts (Zeriti, Robson, Spyropoulou & Leonidou, 2014).
UBER also went through some challenges in the business. Due to a tough competition by
Lyft ride share UBER had to go through a little loss although the services provided by both the
brands are same but the positions of brands are completely different. UBER in its initial days
only offered black executive LInc.oln cars. Their promotion and advertising were all black with a
logo that was sleekly formed (Thomas, Barraket, Ewing, MacDonald, Mundell & Tucker, 2016).
Lyft on the other side, offered cars with lots of interesting features added (Stroyov, Patel & Ali,
2017). Even the cars came with pink moustache. Lift kind of took the idea from UBER and did
the completely opposite of UBER when it comes to branding and the culture. Therefore the
UBER was criticized for its unfriendly behavior even by the pre and the media. UBER was even
charged with few lawsuits regarding the driver’s behavior and other factors.
Concrete issues affecting Tesla and UBER
In tesla’s case, the major issue is regarding the under delivery of the products and the brand
reputation. Tesla promised 20,000 deliveries per month but so far it has only delivered 2600
deliveries till now. The question of tesla’s integrity and the poor marketing strategies arise here.
many investors dropped the idea of investing into tesla’s stocks because of their high debt and
miscommunication from the CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk. Due to ruthless behavior of Elon Musk,
many analysts were disappointed which eventually affected the investors too (Büyüközkan,
Mukul & Uztürk, 2016). Right after the interview, stock prices of tesla fell down which caused a
huge finance issue for the company.
On the other hand autopilot systems of Tesla’s cars are being investigated due to its lack
of safety and other programmer. Many other issues that affect the company severely are the
lawsuits filed by other companies and the labor union. UBER has faced so many issues mainly
regarding the behavior of the drivers. Due to its dull branding and initially providing the
services in black LInc.oln cars, UBER has been called unfriendly (Moorhead, 2016). Many
protests and strikes were organized regarding this situation, which caused a huge amount to the

Marketing Strategy and Plan
UBER. Many different kind of lawsuits are also filed against UBER drivers because of many
different reasons.
Another issue that affects the UBER business is dynamic pricing (Palmatier, Stern & El-
Ansary, 2016). The fares depend on different kind of situation and timing and then decided on
the basis of that but many people criticized this.
Dealing with the situation
Tesla and UBER has done brand repositioning and changed so many factors regarding
the previous strategies that were being used in the organization. For instance Tesla is thinking of
enhancing their production target, so that the Inconvenience can be avoided and the customers
get the product delivered within the time limit. The CEO, Elon
Musk has said that they are using new efficient strategies to make the manufacturing and
the product delivery efficient and convenient. They are also rethinking the pricing strategy in
such a way that even an average consumer can afford the luxurious electrical cars. The new
Model 3 comes with a very affordable rates and sleek aesthetics which can be easily afforded by
any average customer. The popularity of model 3 is so high that the company is thinking of
getting its debt paid with the help of profits made by Model 3 sales (Taoketao, Feng, Song &
Nie, 2018).
UBER’s new strategies mainly include the repositioning of brand logo. The previous
logo was so sleek and dull therefore, the new logo of UBER comes with different colors and
designed in an interesting manner. Another issues like, awkward or weird behavior of the drivers
can be dealt with the app (Taoketao, Feng, Song & Nie, 2018). App will allow the customers to
contact the company and complain about any suspicious activity directly and at the spot. It will
make the journey more comfortable and secure for the customers as well as it also give the
chance of gaining a competitive advantage over Lift.
Future challenges faced by both the companies
In Tesla’s case, the debt might increase because of the underproduction and under
delivery. This might affect the tesla’s financial health in a negative manner.
The autopilot issue has caused many problems in the past and it is being investigated currently.

Marketing Strategy and Plan
In the future also it is very likely to affect the company’s performance and might cause car crash
if not taken care of.
Missing target is also one of the biggest concerts of tesla. In 2018 In the first three
months only 9,766 model 3 vehicles were manufactured. It might affect the company’s
performance and the customer base in the future.
UBER might face risks like, taxes, payment issues and the attitude of the drivers. The
mainly concerned issue is regarding the behavior of UBER drivers. Because UBER drivers are
what makes the business complete in a manner and if their behavior is not appropriate then it
may cause some problems.
On the other hands, the dynamic pricing of UBER is also an issue that affects the market
and the business of the company. Since the prices are not fixed and price surge can occur
anytime therefore this issue puts a big damper on the UBER services and might affect the
business in the future. Taxes are also a major concern for UBER, since UBER has expanded it’s
business to many countries therefore the taxes are need to be paid accordingly. And in the future
the Increased taxes might challenge the business.
Conclusion
Tesla and UBER both the companies went through brand repositioning and has
implicated so many new factors and strategies in order to protect the brand image. This report
contains the brief intro of both the companies and then the issues regarding their marketing
strategies. This report also shows the current and future challenges in the company and how they
affect the performance of both the business entities. The brand repositioning or the market
repositioning which is done in both the companies is also explained under this report. Market
repositioning Includes mainly those factors which help the brand to change their marketing
strategy like product, promotion or place in order to prevent the business from negative factors or
influences (Taoketao, Feng, Song & Nie, 2018). Tesla and UBER both the companies are facing
some challenges and are also on the verge of facing many new challenges in the future, therefore
the market reposition is a great solution for both the companies that has explained in this report
in a brief manner.

Marketing Strategy and Plan
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