Richard Green 070956072

ACE 2005MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS

ASSIGNMENT 2

Word Count: 1935Date of Submission: 11/05/09

1. Marketing Communications Strategy and Objectives

1.1 SWOT Analysis

Appendix 1 shows the SWOT analysis for the Fiat brand. A SWOT analysis is a method of showing the internal strengths and weaknesses a company has, and the external threats and opportunities that the company can either be harmed by, or use to their advantage respectively.

1.2 Marketing Objectives

Marketing objectives are usually centred upon overall performance targets for example customer acquisition whereas marketing communications objectives are more specific and follow the acronym SMART. They may look to increase a brand’s awareness through the use of a certain form of media channel.The marketing communication objective I will be focusing on is to “Inform 50% of the prospective Fiat 500 target market of the new Fiat 500 C with the initial launch campaigns for the car.”

2. Mission Statement

“A mission statement is a brief description of a company’s fundamental purpose.” (Ward, 2006) Fiats mission statement is “to build cars with attractive styling and exciting engines, cars that are accessible and improve the quality of everyday life.” (Fiat.com, 2009)

3. Promotional Mix

3.1 Fiat 500 Cabriolet Release “Let the Sunshine in”

The Fiat 500 Cabriolet is the latest car being released by Fiat and is shown in figure 1.

younger in their old age, so if we were to say that 19-30 year olds would be the most interested, it would narrow the target market down massively.The car will be aimed at those with the values of wanting excitement, individuality, authenticity, open mindedness but most importantly, FREE THNKERS!The aim of the campaign, as a whole, will to be to make the Fiat 500 C “massexclusive”. This means that the car will aim to be seen as a cult brand that everyone can own, but not a niche brand as to alienate some demographics of customers.

Fig.1

Appendix 2 shows where I believe the Fiat 500 C to be positioned in terms of its competitors.The car itself will be targeted at a consumer with a certain lifestyle and frame of mind. This is because nowadays, people are feeling much

"For an integrated marketing campaign to work it first needs to be led by a big idea, which is then translated into every relevant discipline. This doesn't mean that only one agency can work on it, it can involve multiple agencies," (Atkinson 2008)The marketing campaign must be seen as fun, fashionable and as “cool” as the car itself. The hope that this car, being a cabriolet, can not only allow the driver to literally let the sunshine in, but also bring some sunshine and light up everyone’s lives.

A short term pull strategy, “aimed at encouraging customers to ‘pull’ products

through the channel networks” (Forbes, D 2009) will be used in order to portray as many features/benefits of the new car to the target market as possible.The strategy will focus around the launch of the car and aim to personalise it. This will mean that hopefully the target market will see it as a way in which to portray their own personalities.The car will be the main constituent of the marketing strategy, it will also be used to incarnate the brand with characteristics such as being fun, youthful, desirable, and all aim to push towards achieving “massexclusivity”.

3.1.1 Journalist Road Testing weekend

One of the most efficient ways of ensuring as much press attention as possible, is to have a designated weekend in which journalists from specific publications can review the car.I believe that the spending of capital on the use of an upmarket hotel, such as Hotel Du Vin in Harrogate, free meals, drinks and accommodation will warrant itself as a good use of money as a happy journalist is much more likely to provide a positive report of the car, and is therefore low priced, target specific form of marketing.Appendix 4 shows the journalist’s itinerary, with appendix 5 showing what publications will be invited, and figure 2 below, the road route beginning in Harrogate that the journalists will take.

(Mapquest.co.uk) It is the perfect road to show off the cars assets as it is full of tight corners and reasonably long straights. The route takes the journalists to Harewood hillclimb,

Fig. 2

which is a small race circuit. Here they will be able to have some fun and give the car a really good testing.A good report is vital to cars. This is due to the fact that they are high involvement product as require a lot of income to be spent upon them. This means that people are much more likely to spend a lot of time researching all of the possible options and other substitutes (in this case other cars), and make their purchasing decision accordingly.

3.1.2 Fiat 500 C P.R stunt

Public relations is defined as “relations of an organization, individual, idea, whatever, with the publics on which it is dependent for its existence.” (Bernays 2006)This is a great way to advertise the new car for many reasons.Firstly, apart from the actual costs of producing the P.R stunt, there are no extra advertising costs as it receives free press and news coverage. For any stunt to be successful it needs to be new and exciting, otherwise no one will pick up on the story and it will all be a waste of time.Secondly, with wanting to make the car appeal to the younger market, a creative and imaginative P.R stunt will hopefully capture their imaginations and ensure that they recognise the car with these characteristics.The first will involve 100 500 C’s driving in a convoy from Glasgow, passing through most major cities throughout the UK on their way to London where they will arrive in time for the launch party on the 21st of June. Figure 3 below, shows the route that they will take. This will of course create a great stir for anyone who sees the cars in convoy, and create good discussion amongst the young target market.

interested in the car, but also acting as a source of post evaluation for the marketing campaign to measure success.

Fig. 3

In conjunction to this there will be a text campaign in order to get as many people involved in the product as possible. The cars will be tracked across the country and will have a text number on the side of the door, with instructions to text the current whereabouts of the car, their name and age. This will then enter them into a competition to win one of ten cars. This has been chosen to do as not only will this make sure that people take more notice of the cars themselves, but it will help Fiat in building up a database of possible customers, acting as market research to see what type of consumer is possibly

The launch party will also be advertised on the side of the car.

3.1.2.1 “Let the sunshine in”

This will be the main public launch of the car. The launch needs to put visuals to what the car is trying to encapsulate, which is a “Love the sun” theme, and attempt to attract the targer market of young feeling individuals and families.This has been chosen as it represents what the 500 C tries to portray in terms of happiness, and what makes the population of the UK happier than a trip to a sunny beach.The location for the launch will be Hyde Park. This site has been chosen as it has all the facilities that are required (toilets, restaurants etc) and is also recognised by the British public as a place to enjoy the summer. Good transport links help to make it as easy as possible for the guests and general public to attend. Hopefully, Pimms will be the main sponsor of the event. This company has been chosen as the brand seems to encapsulate everything that the British summer is. It will also mean that some funds will also be covered in the way that we now do not have to pay for the serving of Pimms or other hospitality that they will provide.

(www.royalparks.org.uk/docs/park_maps/hyde_map.pdf Fig. 4 As can be seen from figure 4 above, a large area of the park will be hired out and covered in sand. There will be ice cream vendors, performers, Pimms for the adults and juice for the children with deck chairs encouraging people to relax and enjoy themselves and the hopefully sunny weather.Throughout the day presenter Alex Zane (Stand-up Comedian & XFM Radio DJ) will be introducing music acts onto a stage. The acts will include Sugababes, Razorlight and other music from DJ Jo Whiley.These acts and presenters have been chosen as they are youthful, cool and able to bring a smile to peoples faces. The inclusion of celebrities and performers, although costly, is essential as it will ensure mass news exposure and attendance.

500 Cs will be on floating plateaus in the Serpentine lake which people will be encouraged to swim/ boat bout out to and will be able to then climb onto the float and have a look within the cars.Below, we can see how figure 5 shows a proposed snapshot of the stage and area.

Fig 5This event will be open to all the public who will be notified with banners around Hyde Park, however, the Fiat customer database, which holds records of current, previous, and perspective customers (Bachrynowski, 2009), will be used to invite users through texts to their phones.The Economist 2008 states how “A leading mobile-advertising firm, AdMob, says the number of advertisements it has delivered worldwide has tripled, to 4.5 billion, in the past 12 months.”

3.1.3 Viral marketing

Viral marketing is the use of word-of-mouth and customer referrals in order to communicate messages throughout the target market. (Ferguson 2008).Since the recent boom in networking websites, such as Facebook and Twitter etc, and video sharing websites, the world has never been so “small” in terms of contacting one another.The Economist 2008 reports “firms are also being more selective about the channels they use to communicate with existing and potential customers. This favours the internet, which allows marketers to address focused audiences and quickly gauge the return on their investment.” As this car is aimed at those consumers who are seen to be young at heart, many have these networking websites account.After looking at previous examples, I have decided that this form of advertising will be perfect for the way in which the brand wants to be seen. For example, BMW’s strictly Internet based adverts attracted nearly 55 million viewers. (Porter et al. 2006)This is evidence enough that a well thought out campaign can achieve a massive amount of views in a relatively short amount of time.As the main car launch is quite an event and job to undertake, this will form part of the viral promotion campaign. It will involve showing a fast motion time lapse of the sand being dumped and everything being set up during the night ready for the public

the next day. The video will show the amount of time that lapses as the aim will to have it all set up in 500 minutes, to run alongside with the name of the car. The heading of “500….C” will then appear at the end, being a play on words to not only show the name of the car, but also prove that this could be done within 500 minutes (as in 500…see!)Another side of the viral marketing will be to use Facebook and Twitter. The VIP guests will be asked to change their Twitter status’ to “……is going to Hyde Park for the launch of the Fiat 500 C and to enjoy the beach there! Come along and see me!” This will hopefully not only spread the word of the launch of the car, but in today’s celebrity obsessed culture it may draw people down to the event to see their idols.

4 Scheduling

Appendix shows a Gantt chart representing the major dates of the campaigns. A Gantt chart “graphically displays the work breakdown, total duration needed to complete the tasks, the resources allocated, as well as percentage completion of the project.” (Kumar, P 2004)

5 Budgets

Appendix shows the budget for the launch and accompanying marketing campaigns.I was looking to spend under £200,000 which I have achieved. This figure was decided upon as in todays economic climate, costs need to be kept to a low. This is why a low cost, high impact campaign has been decided upon to try and achieve this.

6 Future Actions

This campaign is designed to raise the awareness of the target market quickly, and in a short time. The steps that should be undertaken in the future to ensure the car maintains in the public eye are shown in appendix..

7 Evalutaion

I will be doing post-test evalutaion on the launch of the 500 C and it’s accompanying marketing campaigns (shown in appendix..) Brassington and Petit (2006) refer to post test evaluation as “evaluating marketing campaigns after they have been completed.” All of the evaluatory methods being used will help see if the communications objectives have been met as they all focus upon looking at the targeted customers and whether the different forms of marketing reached them.A low cost, high exposure launch was one of the main factors involved in this marketing communications plan. Looking at the budget this has been achieved, as discussed in part 5, however, £100,000 has been spent on two performers. After conducting peer groups it will be vital to see if the large amount of expenditure on these acts was one of the main factors in getting people to attend the launch party, or if there was a more cost effective way. If there were to be any cuts from the budget, this is where it would come from.

Appendices

Appendix 1: SWOT Analysis

Strengths Weaknesses

Green issues: Fiat recorded the lowest average CO2 emissions in 2007. (Fiat sets euro record for CO2 emissions, 2008)

Constant Innovation: Fiat has continued to produce new cars such as the Fiat 500 and Qubo. These cars match the increasing demand for cheap, small versatile cars.

Research and Development: In 2008, Fiat involved approximately 13,200 people at 116 centres around the world. R&D investments totalled some 1.6 billion euros. (Innovation and technology 2008)

Expertise: The biggest customer care centre in the EU (The name of the game is survival 2009)

Constantly changing philosophy: Fiat constantly reviews their objectives ensuring they always meet consumers ever changing needs. (Fiat S.p.A 2009)

Finances: Last year Fiat Group Plc recorded a revenue of €59.4 billion. (Fiat S.p.A 2008)

Poor reliability: Fiat have always had an image linked with most Italian cars of a poor build quality. (Winton 2007)

Poor Dealer Image: Some of Fiats main dealerships have currently been heavily criticised for not responding quickly and efficiently to problems such as maintenance and general enquiries. (Powell 2008)

Lack of desirability: One of Fiat’s main problem is the fact that they are seen simply as functional, family cars and not as cool and attractive. (Bachrynowski 2009)

Opportunities Threats

GM Motors: Fiat are looking to capitalise on struggling car giant General Motors by allowing them to access to their small engine technology, in return for 30% share in order to access the US market.

Low interest rates: At just 0.5%, the government are attempting to encourage and increase spending which may mean cars see a growth in demand.

Consumers are becoming “greener”: This means they are looking to other forms of transport.

Economic downturn - Consumers are spending less on possible “luxury” e.g cars as they have less disposable income.

Environmental pressure groups: Greenpeace have put pressure on most car manufacturers, including Fiat as to reduce emissions.

Appendix 2 Fiat 500 C Product position

Segment A

LENGTH

Chevrolet Matiz

Citroen C1

Daihatsu Cuore

Fiat Seicento

Fiat Panda

Ford Ka

Hyundai Atos Prime

Kia Picanto

RenaultTwingo

Toyota Aygo

VW Fox

6800

7200

7600

8000

8400

8800

9200

9600

10000

3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 3.9

EN

TR

Y P

RIC

E

Citroen C2

Ypsilon

10400

2.5

Smart

VW Polo

Segment Sub B

Nissan Micra

Toyota Yaris

Peugeot 107

11000

Segment ASegment A

LENGTH

Chevrolet Matiz

Citroen C1

Daihatsu Cuore

Fiat Seicento

Fiat Panda

Ford Ka

Hyundai Atos Prime

Kia Picanto

RenaultTwingo

Toyota Aygo

VW Fox

6800

7200

7600

8000

8400

8800

9200

9600

10000

3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 3.9

EN

TR

Y P

RIC

E

Citroen C2

Ypsilon

10400

2.5

Smart

VW Polo

Segment Sub B

Nissan Micra

Toyota Yaris

Peugeot 107

11000

Chevrolet Matiz

Citroen C1

Daihatsu Cuore

Fiat Seicento

Fiat Panda

Ford Ka

Hyundai Atos Prime

Kia Picanto

RenaultTwingo

Toyota Aygo

VW Fox

6800

7200

7600

8000

8400

8800

9200

9600

10000

3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 3.9

EN

TR

Y P

RIC

E

Citroen C2

Ypsilon

10400

2.5

Smart

VW Polo

Segment Sub B

Nissan Micra

Toyota Yaris

Peugeot 107

11000

Appendix 3: Journalist’s Itinerary

Time Activity

16:00 – 17:00 Arrive at hotel

17:00 – 17:15 Signing in

17:15 – 17:45 Briefing on itinerary w/ tea and coffee

18:30 – 20:30 Dinner

20:30 – 09:00 Free Time

09:00 – 10:00 Breakfast

10:00 – 10:30 Briefing on car

10:30 – 10:45 Tea/Coffee

10:45 – 11:15 Briefing on route

11:15 – 12:15 Road Test

12:15 – 12:30 Tea/Coffee

12:30 – 14:00 Hill Climb

14:00 – 15:00 Lunch

15:00- Depart

Appendix 4: Publications invitedPublication Reason

Autocar One of the main car magazines in the UK.Read by any car enthusiast therefore invite essential

What car? One of the main car magazines in the UK.Read by any car enthusiast therefore invite essential

Car magazine One of the main car magazines in the UK.Read by any car enthusiast therefore invite essential

Auto Express One of the main car magazines in the UK.Read by any car enthusiast therefore invite essential

Top Gear Read by young target audience.High profile magazine

Fast Car Aimed solely at young target marketSeen as “cool” respectable magazine

Evo Aimed solely at young target marketSeen as “cool” respectable magazine

Max Power Aimed solely at young target marketSeen as “cool” respectable magazine

Sunday Times

Respectable publicationReviewed by high profile Jeremy Clarkson.Not solely car publication therefore reach further.

Fifth Gear Involves television reporters therefore high profile in today’s celebrity culture

Zoo Not solely car publication therefore reach further.Aimed solely at young target marketSeen as “cool” respectable magazine

Nuts Not solely car publication therefore reach further.Aimed solely at young target marketSeen as “cool” respectable magazine

FHM Not solely car publication therefore reach further.Aimed solely at young target marketSeen as “cool” respectable magazine

Appendix 5: Launch Day schedule

Time Activity

9:00-approx 15:30 General public start using “Beach”

Approx 16:00 Fiat 500 C convoy arrives in park introduced by Alex Zane and soundtrack “Let the sunshine in” by Milk and Sugar

16:30 Razorlight perform

17:00 Jo Whiley Dj’s a set18:00 Evening party begins

18:00 Jo Whiley Dj’s second set

19:00 Sugababes perform

19:30-22:00 Evening party continues, DJ’d by Jo Whiley

Appendix 6: Gantt chart

Appendix 7: Budget

Appendix 8: Future action to be taken

Steps to be taken Description Reason1.Television Advert Low cost, simple but effective advert

Shown at appropriate times when target audience will be watching eg inbetween Hollyoaks, Football matches, Gok Wan’s Fashion Fi

Effective way of reaching audience Maintain low expenditure Able to achieve wide “reach”

2.Magazine Advert Entered into Autocar, FHM, Whatcar, Nuts, Zoo, Grazia, OK

Picture of grey, gloomy scene with depressed people, however in centre is car with Cabriolet down and sunshine solely on that car with heading “500 C Let The Sunshine In”

Magazines that target audience will be reading Advert portrays essence of car Wide “reach”

3.Billboards Put in busy places Same advert as one used in magazine (Descried above)

Low cost, high exposure form of advertising

Event Type of evaluation

Definition Reason

Entire Launch Campaign Enquiry Tests/Recall

Involve measuring the number of requests for product information and sales visits generated.

Customers contact dealerships.

Asked if saw any of the promotions

Did it affected their view towards the car.

Journalist Road testing weekend/magazine reviews

Focus group/Reach

“carefullyplanned series of discussions designed to obtainperceptions on a defined area of interest ina permissive, non-threatening environment”(Krueger and Casey, 2000)

Reviews in magazines targeting demographic mentioned in 3.1,

Focus groups involving demographic asked if reviews influenced them/if they saw it will help show the effectiveness.

Text campaign Enquiry Tests Involve measuring the number of requests for product information and sales visits generated.

Simple to measure Just the amount of texts

received Build database of customer

profiles interested in car Allows us to know if target

market was reachedViral Marketing “Hits”/Reach +

FrequencyAmount of visits to the webpage.No. of people exposed to message and amount of time

Possible to measure amount of views and visits to websites

Not only how many people view it, but also

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Madison, we have lift-off, The Economist, 27th November 2008, accessed on the 16th April 2009 http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12685528

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Powell, W 2008, Fiat 500 launch an "utter shambles, retreived on 13/02/09 http://www.autocar.co.uk/blogs/stillatthewheel/archive/2008/01/24/4553.aspx

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