The Prius Leading a Wave of Hybrid Cars

MKTG 396: Assignment #1: The Prius Leading a Wave of Hybrid Cars

Question #1:

Company: Within the company there are a few areas to look at regarding Toyota's introduction of the Prius. Areas such as financing, research, development, as well as others. When introducing the Prius, Toyota started early with its promotion of the hybrid. Spending US$15 million out of the US$190 million is spent on marketing in the 2002 year. Toyota informed its potential customers threw informative emails, TV commercials, and earth day give a way's. Toyota put a lot into research and development to come up with the hybrid with the advances in technology, such as the engine of the Prius. The engine combines a 1.5 litre, 4 cylinder gas engine, with a 33-kilowatt electric engine that runs of a nickel-hydride battery. With this new engine and normal highway driving conditions the car is said to get 106 km per gallon. It is also rated one of the "greenest" vehicles on the market. Since North Americans complain about gas mileage, and want to be environmentally friendly this seems like the way to go.

Suppliers: One of Toyota's major costs of manufacturing the Prius would be the nickel-hydride battery that the electric part fo the engine runs off of. This is also one of the main reasons why hybrid cars are so expensive compared to similar gas powered cars of the same size. But if manufacturers of hybrid cars were to see a yield in economies of scale then there would be more reason for producers of the battery to put more time and money into research and development of the battery and thus decrease costs of producing it. this would in term pass savings onto the potential buyers of the hybrid car.

Customer Market: when looking for a way to market the Prius to consumers Toyota looked at what consumers wanted in a vehicle. Things like lower gas mileage, lower emmissions, and something that what technologically appealing. so with this in mind Toyota set out to design a car to appeal to all these things. with the combined electric and gas engine the Prius gets better mileage, and one of the "greenest" vehicles on the market. consumers have also been able to technologically modify there Prius', some have added DVD players and such, or programmed the cars computer to shower videos etc, on the monitors in the car.

Competitors: introducing the Prius was the way in which Toyota planned to get an advantage over competitors like the big three auto manufacturers (ford, GM, DaimlerChrysler) none of whom had a hybrid in market when the Prius was released. the big three had plans of releasing hybrid vehicles in 2003, Toyota planned to stay on top of the hybrid market with its early release of a hybrid.

Publics: there are a lot of different publics to take in mind. publics such as the media, government, citizen-action, local, general, etc. Toyota used a lot of these when it can to promoting the Prius. they ran articles, in vanity air, and newsweek, as well as running commercials on different television statements such as discovery, the history channel, and the learning network. it ran different taglines, such as " A car that sometimes runs on gas power and sometimes runs on electric power, from a company that always runs on brain power." it also used tag lines that drew the customer in to find the meaning in it and also educating the customer on what exactly a hybrid was.

Question # 2:

Demographic Forces: this is one of the key forces that affect marketing plans it involves the study of people and when they want. Toyota looked at the different things that people wanted in a car. things like low fuel usage, and being environmentally friendly. using the information gathered Toyota came up with the