Consumer Behavior Analysis: Toyota Prius 2018 Model and Marketing

This business report provides an in-depth analysis of consumer behavior concerning the Toyota Prius 2018 model, an electric hybrid car designed to reduce carbon emissions. The report identifies the target market, focusing on environmentally conscious and educated consumers in regions with strict emission regulations. It examines the consumer buying model, including the AIDA model, to explain purchasing motivations. The report explores the implications of consumer behavior on Toyota's marketing mix, detailing product features, pricing strategies, distribution channels, and promotional activities. It also delves into consumer decision-making processes, assessing how consumers perceive the brand, comprehend marketing messages, and evaluate anticipated returns. The report concludes with recommendations for enhancing target market strategies, product development, pricing, distribution, and promotion to maximize the Prius's market success.

Running heading: CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
Consumer Behavior
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
Executive Summary
The business report highlights the perception of consumer behavior theory that illustrated what
factor influences them to buy a particular product. The product that is taken into consideration is
Toyota’s Prius 2018 model, which is an electric hybrid car. This car is developed in order to
reduce the carbon emission from the environment. Thus, the main target demographic region
should be those areas where people are more concerned and educated regarding the adverse
impact of the global warming. Thus, the target market for the concerned model is also described
in this report. Moreover, the consumer buying model along with the AIDA model is also
described in this report that highlights the reason why a person should buy Toyota Prius 2018
model.

2CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction................................................................................................................................3
2.0 Discussion..................................................................................................................................5
2.1 Identification of target market...............................................................................................5
2.1.1 Target market for Toyota Prius.......................................................................................5
2.1.2 Potential core segments..................................................................................................5
2.1.3 Implications of these factors on present marketing mix strategy...................................6
2.2 Consumer decision making processes...................................................................................8
2.2.1 Approaches to establish consumers’ perception.............................................................8
2.2.2 Consumers’ comprehension of the organization’s message and of the brand................9
2.2.3 Consumers’ motivation, attitude, anticipated returns from consumption.......................9
2.2.4 Decision process...........................................................................................................10
2.2.5 Role advertising play in AIDA.....................................................................................11
3.0 Recommendations....................................................................................................................12
4.0 Conclusion...............................................................................................................................13
5.0 Reference List..........................................................................................................................14
6.0 Appendix..................................................................................................................................17

3CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
1.0 Introduction
Toyota is an automobile company, and is a division of Toyoda Automatic Loom Works.
The company established in the year 1937 and the founder of the organization was Kiichiro
Toyoda (Toyota.com 2018). Toyota's net revenue from worldwide was 28,403.1 Billion Japanese
Yen in the year 2016 and 27597.2 Billon Japanese Yen for the year 2017 (Statista 2018).
2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
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Image 1: Toyota's net revenue from worldwide from 2007 to 2017
(Source: Statista 2018)
Toyota’s principal products are vehicles operated from electric technology, SUV cars,
pickup trucks, luxury vehicle, buses, and pleasure boats (Toyota-global.com 2018). Toyota also
performs non-automotive activities in the areas of aerospace, robotics, sewing machine
technology and agricultural technology. The benefits that can be get from the Toyota automobile
is durability and best resale value. Among all the Toyota’s automobile, Kelley Blue Book had
the best resale value (Heller and Darling 2012). Moreover, the automobile of Toyota has the top
safety pick and had more IIHS top safety picks in the year 2013 (Toyota-global.com 2018).
Chowdhury (2014) furthermore stated that target to research on the current needs of the people

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and fulfill the recent technological trends is the main reason of being the innovativeness among
all other organization. The extension of their automobile can be seen from the technology that
they have developed like- environmental technology, automated driving technology, intelligent
transport technology, personal mobility and partner robots (Toyota-global.com 2018).
The product that is taken into consideration is Toyota Prius, which is a automated hybrid
electric cars and is developed to overcome problems like carbon emission and rising price of the
fuel. According to the products life cycle, the Toyota Prius is in the growth stage and the sales of
Toyota Prius is the exponentially high. Rahman (2013) stated that in the year 2016, there was
16% annual revenue growth in hybrid-vehicle sales from delivering 10 million units of the model
by January 2016 and at the end of April 2016, another 9 million units has been sold
(Newsroom.toyota.co.jp 2018). The marketing strategies for Toyota Prius shifts that illustrate a
classical growth stage through products improvements, product line additions and reduce in price
so that more people can use their product.
In this business report the primary target market for Toyota Prius, potential core or
secondary market segments and the implication of these segments in the marketing mix will be
discussed. Moreover, this report will also illustrate the process of establishment of the
consumers’ perception, consumers’ motivation, attitude, anticipated returns from consumption of
Toyota Prius, group influence and social stratification along with the discussion whether or not
their advertisements shows respect for consumers. At last, some recommendations will be
suggested for enhancing their target market, products decisions, proving decisions, decisions for
distribution and promotion.

5CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
2.0 Discussion
2.1 Identification of target market
2.1.1 Target market for Toyota Prius
 Demographics- The income of the consumers are the most crucial factor as the electric
cars with innovative technology will be costly. Thus, customers from premium income
group will be the target market for the concerned product.
 Psychographics- Grünig and Morschett (2012) stated that psychographic aspect rely on
attitudes, lifestyle, hobbies and personality of the consumers. Thus, people with more
awareness regarding the environment will use Toyota Prius.
 Geographic- There is some region where diesel and fuel car will be ban after some years.
Thus, Toyota Prius’s should target these countries like Britain, France, Korea, Spain,
Portugal Germany, Norway, Ireland, Japan and the Netherlands.
2.1.2 Potential core segments
Toyota can target those countries where pollution is more. According to Pollution Index
for Country 2018, the highest rate of pollution is in Myanmar, Mongolia, Vietam, China, Nigeria
and others (Girshick et al. 2014). Toyota can target these countries so that the pollution rate in
these nations can be reduced.
Demographics- Long et al. (2015) stated that the demographics aspect of segmentation
comprises of age, gender, income, education, household and profession. In the selected region
for the sale of Toyota Prius, the people with premium income group need to be selected and the
education level of these people should have to be high. Otherwise, they cannot understand the
impact of buying a hybrid electric car for domestic usage. These people thus have the minimum

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education level like being graduate or post-graduate so that they can know what will be the
situation if the pollution level in their nation will increase and what benefits they will get if they
use electric cars.
2.1.3 Implications of these factors on present marketing mix strategy
2.1.3.1 Product
The product that is taken into consideration is Toyota Prius and the features of the
products that customer will get is “full speed range dynamic radar cruise control” this is
included with a camera that detects the distance of the preceding cars (Toyota.com 2018). This
technology also comes with the audio and visual notification that allows a person to apply breaks
at necessary times. The product also has “lane departure alert system”, “pre-collision system
with pedestrian detection system” and “automatic high beams” (Toyota.com 2018). The
features will allow a person to detect lane departure with clear markings, to detect vehicles in
front of the car and see more clearly during the night.
2.1.3.2 Price
The price of the product should be high as a huge portion of annual revenue is spending
on the research and development so that the most new automobile features can be added in a
single car. The pricing strategy that is followed by Toyota is market skimming price in which the
organization introduces their new featured cars at a high price as no other organization is
providing such product. However, Cooper (2017) stated that the price of the car will drop to
certain extent when other brand offers similar kind of products. Toyota will also follow the
market skimming pricing strategy.

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2.1.3.3 Place
The place from where people can get these hybrid electric cars is from their stores.
Toyota should also plan to open their car showroom in the prime location of those nations, where
fuel cars are banned or about to bee banned in future. The concerned organization can also select
their inline website to book a car so that they can serve the first customer, who desires to buy
their destined products from their showrooms. Toyota can also export their cars to their distant
customers that other automobile stores are not providing to their clients.
2.1.3.4 Promotion
Andrews and Shimp (2017) stated that promotion boost brand recognition and the
profitability of the organization through high sales. In order to promote the new Toyota Prius, the
company should use the online media. These media can be Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and
Google+. This way for promoting their brand’s products will results in higher knowledge base
among the customers. Castronovo and Huang (2012) stated that the company can also promote
their product trough traditional medium like newspaper and business magazines so that high
professional and businessman can get aware of the feature if the cars and the new technology that
they are using. Thus the process through which promotion can be obtained are to generate a
separate fanpage for the model Toyota Prius and in YouTube, images and videos related to the
manufacturing of Toyota Prius to the introducing of the car posts will be broadcasted. People’s
reaction will be evaluated through the positive reaction so that the company can get the
knowledge of their product’s value.

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2.2 Consumer decision making processes
2.2.1 Approaches to establish consumers’ perception
El-Refaie (2013) stated that consumer select a particular brand among others based on the
features that they are providing with the products. These features should be new, attractive and
able to attract more customers. There are some features that is incorporated in the 2018 model of
Toyota Prius in the category of safety aspects, interior and exterior, performance, technology
and utility and convenience.
Safety- In safety features, the 2018 model has blind spot monitor that determine the safest time
to change the lane and illuminated though the mirror. Another feature is rear cross traffic alert
that is incorporated by a audible indicator that warns the users from approaching vehicles. The
integrated backup camera shows the scenario behind the cars and the rain-sensing windshield
wipers automatically adjust the sped of the wiper.
Interior and exterior- The exterior of thee Toyota Prius 2018 model has dramatic styling, use of
Bi-LED elements in the headlight and LED taillights, 17-in. alloy wheels (Toyota.com 2018)
(See Appendix, Image 1-3). The interior of the Toyota Prius 2018 have modern interior, 4.2-in.
color dual MID, front bucket seats and steering wheel controls (See Appendix, Image 4-7).
Performance- In order t provide customer a responsive handling and a comfortable smooth ride,
Toyota 18 Prius model has double-wishbone style multi-link rear suspension, Touring-tuned
suspension for driving in twisted roads and also have rear spoiler that can help to drive in a
turbulent windy atmosphere (Toyota.com 2018).
Technology- The technology used for attracting customers are Qi-compatible wireless charging,
the color head-up display which also display the car speed and system indicator, smart flow

9CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
climate control for cooling or heating the front seats, Entune Premium audio with finger touch
display and smart key system to easily lock and unlock the driver’s side door (Toyota.com 2018)
(See appendix, Image 8-12).
2.2.2 Consumers’ comprehension of the organization’s message and of the brand
Toyota’s latest tagline is “It’s a Whole New Feeling” and this is applicable for their
model Toyota Prius. Toyota also follow five principles that are being faithful towards their
duties, being innovative in terms of technology and customer’s experiences, being practical,
establishing homelike atmosphere and giving respect to everyone (Toyota-global.com 2018). In
Toyota Prius 2018 model, all these five principle has been followed and through their
creativeness of the technology, safety aspects, interiors and exteriors of the car will make people
attracted towards this model.
2.2.3 Consumers’ motivation, attitude, anticipated returns from consumption
According to the past statistics, in the year 2016, there were 9 million unit of Toyota
Prius sold over Worldwide and in the year 2017, 10 million additional units were sold (The
Japan Times 2018). It is thus, expected that the cumulative sales of 15 million will be sold by the
year 2020. The company also emphasizes on plug-in hybrid models for the year 2018 that can be
adapted under tougher environmental regulations so that Toyota can earn more annual revenue
through the model. Moreover, the annual profit by the year 2017 was 28,403.1 billion Japanese
Yen and the company estimated to obtain 33,000 billion Japanese yen (The Japan Times 2018).

10CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
2.2.4 Decision process
2.2.4.1 Identification of needs
In the increasing problem of global warming and climate change, all the nations and
organization focus more on green technology. The technology used in Toyota Prius already
saved 77 million tons of CO2 gases (Newsroom.toyota.co.jp 2018). Moreover, the EPA-
estimated 5 mpg technology incorporate in Prius allows people to run the car at pocket friendly
cost. Thus, people will purchase the concerned products as they have to follow all the eco-
friendly regulations.
2.2.4.2 Search
Customer can search for their information through Toyota’s newsroom or several
newspaper articles in which the details about the concerned model will be published. The link to
these articles will also be present in the news bulletin of their official websites. All the
information will also be present in their social media presence like Facebook and people can
freely share their concern and feedback.
2.2.4.3 Evaluation
Toyota will also publish the features of the Toyota 2018 Prius model compared with the
previous model and hybrid cars of other organization. This will allow users to evaluate the most
profitable deal. The additional benefits of this model will also be shared and how this will help
people to meet their expectation and comfortable drive.
2.2.4.4 Product Selection and Purchase
The product selection process have started when customer search for the products and
then compare it with other model (Boztepe 2012). In case of Toyota Prius, people can book their

11CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
selected model from their website. The company will contact to the interested people through e-
mails and mobile SMS. These e-mails also comprises of all the details that is not present in the
website so that customer can get all the knowledge prior purchasing the product.
2.2.5 Role advertising play in AIDA
2.2.5.1 Attention
The customer gets attracted through the images of the interior and exterior of the car
given in the websites and other social media site (See Appendix, Image 1-12). The details also
comprises of interested taglines and the famous faces to introducing the car and this will make
the customer to read their advertisement and the comments that people share for the car.
2.2.5.2 Interest
This aspect is obtained through the interesting sub-heads that are present in the website
for the models. The effectiveness of the interest can be shown from the feedback that people
share from their previous experience and what they have found from the internet sources. The
website will also have the interview from environment experts and automobile experts to raise
the interest.
2.2.5.3 Desire
This aspect deals with the discussion of the features of the products and the necessity to
use the products. The related news articles of the increasing pollution problem and the intension
of people to experience the modern technology will be targeted by Toyota.
2.2.5.4 Action
Through this aspect, Toyota will share all the links and store details through which a
customer can purchase their products. Social media medium YouTube will be targeted where the

12CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
positive review and interview from experts will be broadcasted that allow people to convince that
Toyota’s 2018 Prius model worth their money.
3.0 Recommendations
Target market- The car only selected the premium consumers but in order to attract more people
through their products, Toyota can develop other hybrid model that people with comparatively
lower income range can also afford.
Pricing decisions- The organization uses the strategy of the market skimming pricing strategy.
However, Toyota can adopt the demand-based pricing in which they can evaluate the demand of
their hybrid cars and then set the price by researching on the comparative price of the
competitors.
Distribution decisions- Toyota directly sell their cars from showroom and the customer can take
the car by themselves. However, they can also use RFID technology process in their vehicle
distribution processes. This will allow customer as well as company to track the delivery process
and identify any discrepancy in the transit process in the initial stages.
Promotion decision- The promotional activity can be improved through using traditional media
like Business magazines. Several online news websites and government websites that are more
concerned towards the eco-friendly technology and green initiatives taken by a company can also
be targeted for their promotion. This will improve people’s awareness regarding Toyota’s recent
advancement.

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4.0 Conclusion
It is found from the business report that Toyota Motors, an automobile company and a
division of Toyoda Automatic Loom Works have incurred net revenue of 27597.2 Billon
Japanese Yen in 2017. The consumer behavior regarding the Toyota Prius 20118 model is
selected in this report. Their target markets are the customers from premium income group and
they must have to posses the knowledge regarding awareness to the environment. It is also found
from the report that Toyota can target the regions where diesel and fuel car. Through the decision
process it is found that they should identify the needs of the consumers and focus more on green
technology. The search process can be accomplished through Toyota’s newsroom and newspaper
articles. Toyota can also illustrate comparison with the previous model of Toyota Prius and
hybrid cars of other organization in order to represent the evaluation process. The company can
also contact to the interested people through e-mails and mobile SMS. AIDA model is used that
represents four aspects- attention, interest, desire and action. The ‘attention’ of the customer can
be grabbed through interested taglines and the famous faces to introducing the car along with
images of the interior and exterior of the car. The ‘interest’ towards the car can also be enhanced
through interesting sub-heads that are present in the website. The ‘desire’ to purchase the car can
be further improved through related news articles of the increasing pollution problem and the
intension of people to experience the modern technology. Lastly, the ‘action’ is taken by sharing
all the links and store details along with the positive review and interview from experts
broadcasted on the social media medium that will convince consumer to buy Toyota’s 2018 Prius
model.

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5.0 Reference List
Andrews, J.C. and Shimp, T.A., 2017. Advertising, promotion, and other aspects of integrated
marketing communications. Nelson Education.
Boztepe, A., 2012. Green marketing and its impact on consumer buying behavior. European
Journal of Economic & Political Studies, 5(1).
Castronovo, C. and Huang, L., 2012. Social media in an alternative marketing communication
model. Journal of Marketing Development and Competitiveness, 6(1), p.117.
Chowdhury, S.D., 2014. Strategic roads that diverge or converge: GM and Toyota in the battle
for the top. Business Horizons, 57(1), pp.127-136.
Coffman, M., 2017. Economic Impacts of Electric Vehicle Adoption (No. FSEC-CR-2047-17).
University of Central Florida. Electric Vehicle Transportation Center (EVTC).
Cooper, R., 2017. Target costing and value engineering. Routledge.
El-Refaie, A.M., 2013. Motors/generators for traction/propulsion applications: A review. IEEE
Vehicular Technology Magazine, 8(1), pp.90-99.
Girshick, R., Donahue, J., Darrell, T. and Malik, J., 2014. Rich feature hierarchies for accurate
object detection and semantic segmentation. In Proceedings of the IEEE conference on computer
vision and pattern recognition (pp. 580-587).
Grünig, R. and Morschett, D., 2012. Evaluating market entry modes. In Developing International
Strategies (pp. 123-148). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

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Heller, V.L. and Darling, J.R., 2012. Anatomy of crisis management: lessons from the infamous
Toyota Case. European Business Review, 24(2), pp.151-168.
Kim, N., Rousseau, A. and Rask, E., 2012. Autonomie model validation with test data for 2010
Toyota Prius (No. 2012-01-1040). SAE Technical Paper.
Kim, N., Rousseau, A., Lee, D. and Lohse-Busch, H., 2014. Thermal model development and
validation for 2010 Toyota Prius (No. 2014-01-1784). SAE Technical Paper.
Long, J., Shelhamer, E. and Darrell, T., 2015. Fully convolutional networks for semantic
segmentation. In Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern
Recognition (pp. 3431-3440).
Newsroom.toyota.co.jp., 2018. Worldwide Sales of Toyota Hybrids Surpass 10 Million Units |
TOYOTA Global Newsroom. [online] Available at:
https://newsroom.toyota.co.jp/en/detail/14940871 [Accessed 18 Jan. 2018].
Rahman, M.A., 2013. History of interior permanent magnet motors [History]. IEEE Industry
Applications Magazine, 19(1), pp.10-15.
Statista., 2018. Total net revenue - Toyota 2017 | Statistic. [online] Available at:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/262752/total-net-revenues-of-toyota/ [Accessed 18 Jan. 2018].
The Japan Times., 2018. Toyota hybrid sales top 10 million worldwide | The Japan Times.
[online] Available at: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/02/15/business/corporate-
business/toyotas-global-sales-hybrids-top-10-million/#.WmA8h7yWbIU [Accessed 18 Jan.
2018].

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Toyota.com., 2018. 2018 Toyota Prius Features. [online] Available at:
https://www.toyota.com/prius/prius-features/ [Accessed 18 Jan. 2018].
Toyota-global.com., 2018. TOYOTA MOTOR CORPORATION GLOBAL WEBSITE | 75 Years
of TOYOTA | A 75-Year History through Data | Current Conditions. [online] Available at:
http://www.toyota-global.com/company/history_of_toyota/75years/data/conditions/index.html
[Accessed 18 Jan. 2018].

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6.0 Appendix
Image 1: LED Lighting
(Source: Toyota.com 2018)
Image 2: LED Taillight

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(Source: Toyota.com 2018)
Image 3: 17-in. Alloy Wheels
(Source: Toyota.com 2018)
Image 4: Modern Interior

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(Source: Toyota.com 2018)
Image 5: 4.2 Inches Color Dual MID
(Source: Toyota.com 2018)
Image 6: Steering Wheel Controls

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(Source: Toyota.com 2018)
Image 7: Front Bucket Seat
(Source: Toyota.com 2018)
Image 8: Qi-Compatible Wireless Charging

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(Source: Toyota.com 2018)
Image 9: Color Head-up Display
(Source: Toyota.com 2018)
Image 10: Smart-flow Climate Control

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(Source: Toyota.com 2018)
Image 11: Entune Premium Audio
(Source: Toyota.com 2018)