Marketing Analysis Report: Tesla and Ford's Competitive Strategies

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the marketing strategies employed by Tesla and Ford. It examines how both companies have achieved competitive advantages through their marketing processes, focusing on aspects like target marketing, market segmentation, and marketing intelligence. The report delves into the specific successes of each organization, highlighting their approaches to brand building, customer engagement, and adaptation to market trends. Furthermore, it utilizes academic literature to support the arguments, offering insights into the effectiveness of their strategies in the automotive industry. The report concludes with a comparative assessment of the two companies, emphasizing their respective strengths and weaknesses within the marketing landscape.

Running head: MARKETING
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction.........................................................................................................................2
2. Discussion...........................................................................................................................2
Description of Case 1.............................................................................................................2
Organisation 1 analysis..........................................................................................................3
Marketing related Success......................................................................................................3
How the organisation has achieved its success in terms of marketing..................................4
Description of Case 2.............................................................................................................4
Organisation 2 analysis..........................................................................................................4
Marketing related Success......................................................................................................5
How the organisation has achieved its success in terms of marketing..................................6
3. Conclusion..........................................................................................................................6
References:.................................................................................................................................7

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1. Introduction
Effective marketing strategies have always provided organisations the required edge over
their competitors in the market. They helps in the development of services and goods with the
best profit making potential (Kotler et al. 2015). They ensure optimal use of the resources by
the organisations in order to provide an effective sales message to their target market. Hence,
marketing strategies can be regarded as a crucial road map that have helped many businesses
to gain worldwide success. Two of such businesses are Tesla Motors and Fords. This report
shall elaborate on presenting a brief analysis of Tesla Inc. and Fords in terms of their
marketing and promotional activities. The main aim of this report is to assess the main
reasons behind their success in the marketing realm and to assess their marketing processes
while determining their effectiveness.
2. Discussion
Description of Case 1
From the study of the article MacDuffie (2018), it is clear that the social for Tesla has
been a great success. It is the incredible strength of Tesla Motors from the social media
marketing perspective can be considered as a great contributor to the success of the company.
It is third among the top 29 biggest car brands of the world (Lee and Tan 2019). With the
same, Tesla has a first mover advantage in the manufacturing of electric vehicles and is the
pioneer in the market. It works with a cohesive vision and the main goal of the company is
offering its customers with highly integrated ecosystem, while installing power walls that are
serving as batteries for storing energy generated by solar panels and roofs, selling electric
vehicles, placing supercharging stations on street etc. (Nytimes.com 2019). Hence, its
business ethics are focused on sustainability.

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Organisation 1 analysis
Tesla Inc. is one of the American auto making and energy companies that is based in Palo
Alto, California (Musonera and Cagle 2019). It was earlier known to be Tesla Motors and
was founded in the year 2003 but started being a profitable company in 2013. Elon Musk is
the CEO of the company and he envisions it as a technology driven company that is an
independent automaker and that aims towards providing affordable electric vehicles to the
average customers.
Marketing related Success
a) Target Marketing
As the company products are regarded as expensive for the average customers, the
target market of the company are the wealthy individuals as well as the households
(Grant 2016).
b) Market segmentation
Tesla makes use of mono-segment positioning. It only serves a single target market
and that is the one that they have created- the premium all-electric sports car market.
With the same, the company makes use of anticipatory positioning within the process
of target market segmentation. It position the products for the market segment, which
has low rate of turnover on the basis of forecasts.
c) Marketing Intelligence
The corporate structure of Tesla is its functional hierarchy organisational chart that
focuses on the global regions as well as on centralisation. Notwithstanding this fact,
Tesla Motors remains a technology driven Car Company and the functional structure
of the company follows a flat organisational method. Effective communication
remains the top priority for Tesla Motors (Forbes.com 2019). The company refers its
marketing division as “Global Sales and Service” and because of huge scope off the

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organisation, it divides its marketing division by the geographic region like China,
North America etc. (Jiang and Lu 2018)
How the organisation has achieved its success in terms of marketing
The main success factors of Tesla in terms of marketing are its technology driven
approach, its brand image and its initiatives towards maintaining sustainability. Tesla not
only sells cars but at the same time, also built the necessary infrastructure for supporting
those cars’ operations (Cherubini, Lasevoli and Michelini 2015). With the same, the company
is also diversifying its business. It seems to enter into the market of solar roof tiles because it
complements well with the business of rechargeable lithium ion battery that provides the
households with the storage of “solar captured energy” (Investopedia 2019). The company is
committed towards excellence in serving all the esteemed customers and the sales team of the
company is highly dedicated towards excellence and company success.
Description of Case 2
For becoming socially responsible company, Ford had established its line of electric
vehicle with the first car named “Ford Ranger Electric Vehicle”. The car used to operate on
batteries and does not cause pollution in the environment, which is one of the significant
concerns of today’s world. With the same, the company believes on quality and for it, quality
id the first priority. Its main goal is to achieve customer satisfaction by means of providing
the customer products premium quality along with good service (Nytimes.com. 2019). The
company also believe that customers are at the heart of the company and thus, it keeps in
mind about its customers in each and everything that it does. Henry was already 40 years old
when Ford was founded and today it has successfully went on becoming one of the most
profitable companies in the world. It is the largest family controlled company in the entire
world and has been in continuous family control for more than hundred years.

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Organisation 2 analysis
Ford Motors is one of the American multinational auto making companies that has its
main headquarters based in Dearborn, Michigan. It is a public company and was founded in
the year 16 June, 1903 by Henry Ford (Mack, Credit and Suandi 2018). The key products of
the company are the automobiles. Luxury vehicles, automotive parts, SUVs, commercial
vehicles and pickup trucks. It is to note that very recently, the company have emerged as one
of the significant front runner in majority of the developed nations in terms of the business
segments. Having above 2, 00,000 employees serving worldwide with more than 60 plants,
the company is making use of these resources in the process of designing, marketing,
manufacturing and financing the cars and its other products and services in various different
parts of the world.
Marketing related Success
a) Target Marketing
Ford Motors makes use of differentiated targeting strategy for offering some specific
products to some specific customer segments. The target market of the company is
highly varied and it wants to cater customers as much it can.
b) Market segmentation
It develops a wide variety of vehicles for covering a wide range of market segments.
It do not just want to capture one group of buyers of cars but instead, as many as it
can. It is well aware of its market segments that they could market their products in
different manner. A truck advertisement of Fords’ and its Ford Focus advertisement is
significant different. It is due to the reason that the company recognised that the
people who often buy these products are in different market segments
c) Marketing Intelligence

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The company conducts market research online as well as in person, taking the
feedbacks of the customers, refining the, and creating new processes of data
gathering, which influence the development of products as well as market campaigns.
It further engages the customers through some moderated clinics as well as through
one to one interviews prior to the vehicle reaches the markets.
How the organisation has achieved its success in terms of marketing
Ford Motor makes use of generic strategy that supports the competitive advantage of the
business depending on the reduction of cost and ensuring low prices for attracting the
customers. The company is committed towards excellence in serving all the esteemed
customers and the sales team of the company is highly dedicated towards excellence and
company success. Its main goal is to achieve customer satisfaction by means of providing the
customer products premium quality along with good service. Also, Ford ranks 7th among the
top 29 biggest car brands of the world (Lee and Tan 2019). The company also believe that
customers are at the heart of the company and thus, it keeps in mind about its customers in
each and everything that it does. With the same, it is also concerned about the word, the
environment and hence practice sustainable business (Harvard Business Review 2019).
3. Conclusion
Hence, from the above analysis it is to conclude that both the companies are operating
well in the market but Tesla is leading the automobile market as it is considered to be the 3rd
among the top 29 biggest car brands of the world, where Ford ranks 7th. Hence, Tesla is better
as compared to Ford in terms of marketing realm and the competitive advantage that it holds.

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References:
Cherubini, S., Iasevoli, G. and Michelini, L., 2015. Product-service systems in the electric car
industry: critical success factors in marketing. Journal of Cleaner Production, 97, pp.40-49
Forbes.com. 2019. Tesla's Innovations Are Transforming The Auto Industry. [online]
Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/innovatorsdna/2016/08/24/teslas-innovations-are-
transforming-the-auto-industry/#30a1c1c619f7 [Accessed 5 Aug. 2019].
Grant, R.M., 2016. Contemporary strategy analysis: Text and cases edition. John Wiley &
Sons.
Harvard Business Review. 2019. How Ford Is Thinking About the Future. [online] Available
at: https://hbr.org/2018/05/how-ford-is-thinking-about-the-future [Accessed 5 Aug. 2019].
Investopedia. 2019. Tesla's Got the Keys: A History of Its Success. [online] Available at:
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/061915/story-behind-teslas-
success.asp [Accessed 5 Aug. 2019].
Jiang, H. and Lu, F., 2018. To be friends, not competitors: A story different from Tesla
driving the Chinese automobile industry. Management and Organization Review, 14(3),
pp.491-499.
Kotler, P., Burton, S., Deans, K., Brown, L. and Armstrong, G., 2015. Marketing. Pearson
Higher Education AU.

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Lee, J.W. and Tan, W.N., 2019. Global Corporate Citizenship: Cross-cultural Comparison of
Best Practices in the Global Automotive Industry. The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics
and Business (JAFEB), 6(1), pp.261-271.
MacDuffie, J.P., 2018. Response to Perkins and Murmann: Pay attention to what is and isn't
unique about Tesla. Management and Organization Review, 14(3), pp.481-489.
Mack, E.A., Credit, K. and Suandi, M., 2018. A comparative analysis of firm co-location
behaviour in the Detroit metropolitan area. Industry and Innovation, 25(3), pp.264-281.
Musonera, E. and Cagle, C., 2019. Electric Car Brand Positioning in the Automotive
Industry: Recommendations for Sustainable and Innovative Marketing Strategies. Journal of
Strategic Innovation and Sustainability, 14(1).
Nytimes.com. 2019. Ford Motor Company. [online] Available at:
https://www.nytimes.com/topic/company/ford-motor-company [Accessed 5 Aug. 2019].
Nytimes.com. 2019. Tesla Motors Inc.. [online] Available at:
https://www.nytimes.com/topic/company/tesla-motors-inc [Accessed 5 Aug. 2019].