Marketing Management for Toyota RAV4: Strategies for Revitalizing Sales

This article discusses the macro environmental forces affecting Toyota RAV4, its declining stage in the product life cycle, market segmentation, and consumer decision making process. It also provides strategies for revitalizing sales, including rejuvenating the surviving RAV4, reducing its price, targeting young families, and providing value for money.

Running head: MARKETING MANAGEMENT
Marketing Management
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Table of Contents
Question 1........................................................................................................................................2
Question 2........................................................................................................................................3
Question 3........................................................................................................................................3
Question 4........................................................................................................................................4

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Question 1
Macro environmental forces are the factors that are external to an organization, but have
huge impact on the profit and success level of the organization. In the case study of Toyota
RAV4, Toyota faced the major threats of competitive pressure from the competitive automotive
companies. Moreover, Toyota was being dominated by the super stylish Mitsubishi ASX and
Mazda CX3. Moreover, the younger audiences started to prefer new expression of agility, style
and freedom of this competitive automotives. Furthermore, the Toyota RAV4 was also facing the
issue of changing consumer preferences. Moreover, after 20 years success of Toyota RAV4,
consumers started to change their preferences for highly stylish, less expensive and comfortable
cars. It led to declining sales of RAV4 for its lack of unique identification in automotive market.
Toyota RAV4 can use its stylish nature for addressing the competitive pressures of the
competitor companies like Mitsubishi ASX and Mazda CX3. Moreover, the organization can
successfully use its stylish nature and compactness with the youth customers as its strengths to
beat the competitive pressure in the automotive markets. RAV4 was introduced in the market as
freedom aspiration for the young generation customers. However, it did not focus much on the
value for money of the customers that seemed to a weakness for the car model. Hence, this time,
the organization may address the changing preferences of the customers through focusing on the
value for money.

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Question 2
Product life cycle is an important marketing concept, which describes the stages through
which a product is incepted in the market and removed from the market. As per the case study,
Toyota RAV4 is on the declining stage of product life cycle in Australia. Moreover, the sales of
this car have begun to decline, the market has become saturated. Just like the characteristics of
the declining phase on product life cycle, in case of RAV4, the consumer preferences are
changing and they are being inclined towards super stylish cars. In this way, it can be confirmed
that Toyota RAV4 is definitely on declining stage of product life cycle in Australia.
In such declining stage, Toyota should apply new set of marketing mix for recapturing
the market and increase its market share again in the market. In case of Product mix, the
organization should rejuvenate the surviving RAV4 for making it look new again. The
organization already initiated this effort for making the car model much more stylish for
attracting the new youth customers. In case of Price mix, the organization must concentrate on
the reducing the price of RAV4 for increasing the value for money of the customers. In case of
distribution, the customers would be able to access this car model easily from the dealers and
physical stores of the company. On the other hand, promotional mix, the organization has
already come up with new and strong campaign like “Anything Goes” for introducing the
rejuvenated RAV4 to the customers.
Question 3
Market segmentation divides the entire consumer market into smaller subsets consisting
of customers, who are having similar tastes and preferences. Target marketing is extremely

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important for focusing on narrow segment of the customers for bettering serving them with
customized products. For the new campaign of Toyota RAV4, the organization has targeted the
person form young families. Moreover, the person would be having a highly sophisticated
lifestyle and positive attitude towards his life. Furthermore, the person in the target market would
be matured enough and would be having family value. Hence, instead of highly adventurous, the
person would be caring and have preference of safety for their life. In this new campaign, the
organization would be targeting the person being loyal to the brand.
The new campaign of Toyota RAV4 is actually targeted at attracting the response of the
old loyal customers. Moreover, the organization can make recreation for product reset, where the
organization would announce a new look for RAV4. The cars would be introduced in the market
with more stylish looks and design. Such super stylish look would definitely encourage old loyal
customers to respond to the new campaign. Furthermore, the organization would also reset the
perception of style of the customers. In such way, the organization would reconnect and
recapture the emotion of the old loyal customers towards the new campaign. Apart from that,
most importantly, Toyota would reset the perception of value for money to the customers.
Moreover, the organization would focus on versatility of the car’s features for increasing the
value for money of the customers for gaining their attention towards the new campaign.
Question 4
Consumer decision making Process
1. Need Recognition: In this 1st stage, the consumers identify their needs and demands that
can persuade them towards purchasing a particular product.

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2. Information Gathering: After recognition of needs, the consumers start to gather core
information regarding the product.
3. Evaluation of Alternative: In this stage, the consumers are more likely to evaluate all
the available alternatives in the market for choosing the best source of their required
product.
4. Purchase of Products: In this stage, the consumers actually initiate the purchase of their
desired product.
5. Post Purchase Evaluation: In this way, the customers evaluate the product after using it
in their real life.
Personal preferences of the customers can be an extremely important factor for influencing
the purchase of RAV4. Moreover, the preferences of the young customers for more stylish cars
would have influence the sales volume of this car model. Apart from that, the value for money
factors would also have been influenced the purchase of the car model.
Toyota is recommended in the following manner at each stage of consumer buying decision:
1. Need Recognition: In this stage, Toyota is recommended to increase its promotional
strategies for increasing the customer awareness for creating purchasing needs.
2. Information Gathering: In this stage, the organization is recommended to provide more
credible and authentic information regarding the products to the customers for helping
them in recognizing product attribute.
3. Evaluation of Alternative: In this stage, the organization is recommended to offer
unique product value and value for money for differentiating RAV4 from other rivals.

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4. Purchase of Products: In this stage, the organization should provide the easiest way of
purchasing the cars.
5. Post Purchase Evaluation: In this stage, the organization should be concerned and
empathetic enough regarding any kind of issue faced by the customers after using the
cars.