Marketing Strategies: A Comparison of Nissan and Volkswagen (Report)

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the marketing strategies employed by Nissan and Volkswagen, two prominent players in the automotive industry. It begins with an introduction to marketing principles and the application of these principles to the selected organizations. The main body of the report delves into a comparative analysis of the marketing mix (product, price, place, and promotion) of Nissan and Volkswagen. The report examines their target markets, product offerings, pricing strategies, distribution channels, and promotional activities. The report also explores the STP (Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning) approach of both companies. Through this comparative analysis, the report highlights the strengths and weaknesses of each company's marketing strategies, providing insights into their competitive positioning. The report concludes with a summary of findings and recommendations for both Nissan and Volkswagen to improve their marketing effectiveness. References to relevant literature are provided to support the analysis.

Principles of Marketing
Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Compare and contrast marketing mix.........................................................................................1
Conclusion & Recommendation .....................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Marketing is the procedure of interesting potential customer as well as clients in
company's products & services. This procedure apply by the business to conduct research,
promotion. Selling and allocating their products & services in overall market. It is known as
business term that professionals have described in dozens of various ways (Atwal and Williams,
2017). To conduct business activities apply principles that are agreed upon marketing ideas and
for this prepare effective strategies. To better understand of the report selected organisation,
Nissan which is a Japanese multinational auto mobile manufacturing business which is dealing
into luxury vehicles, forklift trucks, outboard motors and many others. To analysis the position
of business compare with competitor of Volkswagen which is German auto maker. In this report
consist of Marketing mix like product, price, place & promotion and STP approach.
MAIN BODY
Compare and contrast marketing mix
Target Market: The market segmentation is procedure of classified customer according
to groups, segments and depended on various characteristics. On the basis of these segmentation
prepare strategies and organise campaign. Nissan target to middle income people who have
income below 25K and age group of 25 -45 group year. While Volkswagen target to fit to the
pocket upper middle income group and age group of 35 to 45 years.
Nissan Volkswagen
Age 25 to 45 35 to 45
Gender Both (males & female) Male
Income level Middle level Upper Level
Social Class Medium High
Level Of education Every type of people Businessmen
Life style Average Standard
Nissan Is sixth leading organisation in auto mobile sector which is dealing into luxury
cars. The company focus on 25 to 45 year people and provide products to average income people
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according to their requirements. There are applying effective marketing approach and target to
male & female both and prepare strategies according to them (Cummins, Loe and Peltier, 2016) .
Volkswagen is one of the leading organisation in Japanese auto mobile sector which have
a strong presence at world wide level. It is conducting activities into different countries like
North America, South, India, Western Europe and many others countries. It is offering products
to average age of 54.5 years old people. The segmentation of car help to different income level
and fulfil the requirement of every ones. There is identified different in income level of people
that large impact on buying behaviour of people which falls under the behavioural segment
Product: An item which is offered for sale is known as a product. A product can either
be a good or a service depending upon the nature of business. Levitt's model is based on the idea
of a product as a level. For comparison purposes, Nissan and Volkswagen have been selected. In
terms of product offerings, Nissan's top models are Altima, Pathfinder and Frontier. On the other
hand, Volkswagen's top products are Jetta, VW Passat and VW Golf GTI. The shape of Altima
lacks the looks it should have according to its price tag. While Volkswagen offers better shape of
its cars. Both the companies offer a lot of attractive colour options to the customers. Nissan's cars
provide customers with functional utilities like power windows, ABS, air conditioner etc. While
Volkswagen's cars provide customers with functions and features like child safety lock, central
locking, stability control etc. At the emotional level, Nissan enjoys a strong brand image.
Volkswagen has a brand loyalty among customers who prefer to make repeated purchases from
the brand. Nissan stands at 39th position in the list of best global brands. While Volkswagen is
world's 3rd most valuable global brand (M’zungu, Merrilees and Miller, 2017). Aaker's brand
personality framework determines the brand personality by making classification in five core
dimensions which are sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication and ruggedness. Nissan
uses sincerity as it is a down-to-earth brand and its workers are honest, wholesome and cheerful.
Volkswagen uses competence as it is a reliable, intelligent and successful brand.
Price: Price refers to the value that will be paid by the customers for purchasing a
particular quantity of goods or for availing a service. Pricing strategy is a method which
enterprises use to price their products. The different pricing strategies are cost-plus pricing,
competitive pricing, value-based pricing, price skimming and penetration pricing (Tontuș, 2018).
Nissan Volkswagen
Prices its cars competitively. Charges a premium price for its cars
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It adopts competitive pricing strategy as it
realises its need to capture market share and
also needs to maintain customer brand loyalty.
It uses psychological pricing strategy as it
believes that its prices will have a
psychological impact on the customers. It
believes that it can make customers pay a high
price for its cars.
The market price of Nissan Qashqai is 11,100
pounds.
The market price of Volkswagen Golf is 22320
pounds
Conclusion from the pricing strategy of Nissan
is that it focuses more on its mid-range
customers and thus adopts a competitive
pricing strategy. However it also has high-end
product offerings for its premium customers
with different features. The features of cars of
Nissan allow it to charge economical prices fro
m its customers as its target customer base is
middle-income group.
Conclusion from the pricing strategy of
Volkswagen is that it focuses on developing
premium cars packed with loads of features to
attract its premium customers. Also, a strong
brand image and loyalty helps it to adopt
psychological pricing strategy. The features
offered by its cars enhances the buyer
satisfaction level which helps to justify the
price which they are paying for Volkswagen's
products.
Place (Distribution): Nissan is selling out by company at world wide level. It is mainly
distributed products at North America and Mexico, Europe, Latin America and Caribbean, Asia
and many other place. In regard of Middle East like Gulf estates and Africa. The company has
been manufactured their products in Japan, Vietnam, China, Thailand, Taiwan and many more. It
has strong network about 300 countries and majorly conduct deal into luxury brand in North
America also has presence in 15 another nations and has about 230 dealers (Moravcikova and
et.al., 2017).
On the other side Volkswagen are available are every place throughout the world. The
company manufactured their products and assemble parts of car into different countries like
Germany, China, Mexico, India, Russia, Slovakia and many others. It is mostly dealing into
Indonesia which is top destination of car and van sales. Recently company launched new plan
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production to boost local people and manufacturing car in less price and easy available to people.
The cars of Volkswagen are selling out by company all over the world have owned dealership
and multi brand car show rooms.
Promotion: Nissan understands the requirement of meaningful communication which is
significant belief and relay to customers where define about the product specification and define
about the performance of car both on and off road, safety, speed capability, safety features and
luxury features. To promote their products use different medium like radio, print, television and
other interesting campaigns. It s mainly focus on 360branding promotion in which collect
feedback from the customer and according to that apply appropriate modification. From online
ads to read all over the world about the car sections, Nissan Usage customer communication,
coordination and experience to support boost procedure through messages to increase
performance of maintain high quality of material (Palmatier and Crecelius, 2019).
While Volkswagen has always been forceful with its ad campaigns. To promote their
products & services at large level apply the 360 branding approach and through this strategy not
only promote parent company but also cars at individual level. With higher grade of formed
strength utilised in its steel, shine of pain and greater depth. To promotion of these products
define product specification like better equipment levels, high quality, its cabin as a trait of all of
its car and most of its promotions in increasing countries and designing effective promotion
strategies at the same manner. Abuse friendly develop and solid building with the longevity was
promoting in India and supports it to acquired significant sale numbers. Aggressive promotional
strategies apply by company for social media networks and using different online application
where most of the user active like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and many others. Product
differentiation is effective marketing tactic which is applied for creative promotional activities of
Volkswagen and develop effective quality (Sun, Garrett and Kim, 2016).
Conclusion & Recommendation
As per the above report it has been articulated that principles of marketing is required to
applied by the both organisation to analysis the performance at international level. Through 4 P's
analysing the which types products they are dealing, analysing their pricing strategies and
evaluating promotional strategies. Along with identify in which places they and dealing products
and manufacturing cars. The Volkswagen has been most successful in auto mobile industry. For
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brand improvement provide all the specific information about the particular topic that helps to
collect all the relevant information.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journal
Atwal, G. and Williams, A., 2017. Luxury brand marketing–the experience is everything!. In
Advances in luxury brand management. (pp. 43-57). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Cummins, S., Loe, T. and Peltier, J. W., 2016. Using sales competition videos in a principles of
marketing class to improve interest in a sales career. Journal for Advancement of
Marketing Education. 24(Special Issue on Sales Education), p.16.
M’zungu, S., Merrilees, B. and Miller, D., 2017. Strategic hybrid orientation between market
orientation and brand orientation: guiding principles. Journal of Strategic Marketing.
25(4). pp.275-288.
Moravcikova, D. and et.al., 2017. Green marketing as the source of the competitive advantage of
the business. Sustainability. 9(12). p.2218.
Palmatier, R. W. and Crecelius, A. T., 2019. The “first principles” of marketing strategy. AMS
Review. 9(1-2). pp.5-26.
Sun, Y., Garrett, T. C. and Kim, K. H., 2016. Do Confucian principles enhance sustainable
marketing and customer equity?. Journal of Business Research. 69(9). pp.3772-3779.
Tontuș, H. Ö., 2018. Promotion of health tourism and evaluation of the principles of marketing
of health services. Journal of Multidisciplinary Academic Tourism. 3(1). pp.67-88.
Online
Marketing mix of Nissan. 2019. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.marketing91.com/marketing-mix-nissan/>
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