Marketing Strategy for the Porsche 911 in Germany

I. Table of Contents

II. List of Figures

1. Introduction

2. Scoping

3. Target Group Analysis and Definition

4. Strategy Analysis
4.1 USP Unique Selling Proposition
4.2 Portfolio Analysis
4.3 Product Lifecycle Analysis
4.4 Pricing Strategy
4.5 Place / Distribution
4.6 Promotion

5. Conclusion

7. References

II. List of Figures

Figure 1: BCG Matrix

Figure 2: Product Lifecycle Curve

1. Introduction

The key to success of every product or service is a good marketing strategy. In general, the core responsibility of marketing is the commercialization of goods or products (cf. Berndt, 2005, Page 1). A successful marketing strategy consists of several points and aspects to ensure that the product or service is attracting the potential and already existing customers in the best way. The following assignment will provide an exemplary overview of a marketing strategy and how to increase sales and maximize turnover throughout good marketing. The product for this exemplary strategy is the Porsche 911 Carrera and the target market for this strategy is the German car market. After defining the scope of a strategy, which should always be the first step in every strategy development, we will have a short look on the targeting customers and then go deeper into the respective parts of the strategy which we develop and finally close the assignment with a conclusion.

2. Scoping

The first step in every development of a strategy should always be the scoping. The definition of the scope is crucial, because it shows the future roadmap of every development. Scoping is used for defining tasks and circumferences of planning- and management processes (cf. Wikipedia Article Scoping). Scoping can be also divided in geographical aspects, product aspects and several other aspects.

For the following assignment, the scope is the defined as the following.

- Target is a marketing strategy for a product
- The product is defined as the Porsche 911 Carrera with its latest model
- Geographical scope is the German car market
- Planning scope is without market analysis and ends up with strategy development
- Strategy implementation is not part of the scope of this assignment

As scoping is a dynamic process, in some cases in a project it is necessary to review if the current scope is correct or maybe the initial scoping lead into the wrong direction and the scope needs to be adjusted.

3. Target Group Analysis and Definition

After defining the scope in the first step, the second step is the target group analysis and definition. This is necessary to ensure that the tasks we define in our marketing strategy are fitting to the customers we want to attract with our strategy. The target group analysis and definition is nearly as crucial as the scoping, because mistakes in the definition of target groups lead to wrong strategy developments and therefore we have effort without any return.

The target group is based on market research. For the Porsche 911 Carrera, the target group can be defined as wealthy people due to the fact that the 911 Carrera in basic setup has a list price of around 96.000 Euros including VAT (cf. Porsche 911 Carrera). The typical Porsche 911 customer is not only thinking rationally. According to a study from Porsche from 2003, one of the major reasons for the customers to buy the 911 Carrera is an emotional component (cf. Porsche GfM 2003, Page 6). Therefore, our target group has a high emotional affinity to the topic of car driving.

Based on the 2003 study, there is a higher percentage of male customers for the 911 Carrera (cf. ibid. Page 5).

The reason of buying is not only for emotional and driving reasons. Porsche as a premium car manufacturer is also a form of status. Nevertheless, everyday usability and sport car ambitions are also reasons for buying (cf. Marketing Club 2012). Even though you can maybe buy a BMW M3 or a Mercedes AMG with more power for less money, customers are deciding for the Porsche 911 Carrera.

To summarize, we can define the group we want to target with our Marketing Strategy as the following.

- Male with a very high percentage
- Emotional regarding his decisions on the topic of cars / driving
- Has rather a high income or saves money for years to get this car
- Aged between 40 and 50

4. Strategy Analysis

Marketing Strategies are the routes to bring a company to the targets set up and describe the “how” in the whole marketing concept (cf. Ramme, 2009, Page 216). To understand the “how” and therefore the way to achieve the targets, it is necessary to know the current situation. This is part of the market analysis which was part of another assignment. After knowing the current situation, there are several tools to use in the marketing strategy which will be part of the chapter.

4.1 USP Unique Selling Proposition

The unique selling proposition, in short form USP, is one criteria of success in the marketing strategy. The USP can be defined of as a kind of unmistakable beneficial offer we can give to our customer (cf. Meffert et. al., 2015, Page 338). It is important to know if the company or the product we want to promote has a USP or not, because the usage of the USP can give benefits regarding the marketing strategy.

For Porsche and the 911 Carrera, it is difficult to define the USP of the product. Actually, the only possible USP of the 911 Carrera is the product itself. Due to the history of the product and the long participation in the competitive market of cars, the 911 Carrera has always been successful with its latest models and innovations. This is shown in the fact that the sales quantity of the 911 has been stable since the last years and there were no significant decreases (cf. Porsche Geschäftsbericht 2015, Page 142 in pdf version). The 911 series was launched in 1963, therefore this series exists since more than 50 years (cf. Porsche 911 Wikipedia Article). Additionally, the number of produced cars has increased over the several series. Therefore, the “myth” of the 911 itself is actually the USP of the 911.

4.2 Portfolio Analysis

To develop a successful marketing strategy for a product or a service, it is necessary to know where your product or service is located, first in your own portfolio of the company and second also in relation to your competitors. The portfolio analysis therefore supports the management to evaluate and steer the business (cf. Kotler et. al., 2011, Page 175).

One important piece of the portfolio analysis, which we spend some more attention now, is the matrix for the market share and market potential of a good or a product.

The Boston Consulting Group, which is one of the worldwide leading consulting companies, developed the market share / market potential matrix (cf. Kotler et. al., 2011, Page 96). Before going into detail of the respective parts, the following figure shows an overview of this matrix.

Figure 1: BCG Matrix

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

Source: http://cdn.slidesharecdn.com/ss_thumbnails/bcg-matrix-1225557360301276-8-thumbnail-4.jpg?cb=1225550200

In general, there are four areas where a product of a company can be placed. The two criteria for placement are the relevant market share of a product and the market growth rate in total. We now have a closer look on the four areas and then place the 911 Carrera according to the knowing information.

Question Marks

- operating in growing markets
- currently low market share
- entry point for most new invented products
- potential to become a star or a poor dog – Risk of failure

(cf. Kotler et. al., 2007, Page 97)

Stars

- normally developing out of question marks
- market leader in a growing market
- not necessarily generating cash flow – high investments needed to keep position
- usually generating profits and shall become cash cows in the future

(cf. ibid. Page 97)

Cash Cows

- if the growth rate declines, stars become cash cows
- prerequisite is to keep the high market share
- cash cows generate profits – lower investments needed
- Attention needed – keep market share or become a poor dog

(cf. ibid. Page 97)

Poor Dogs

- low market share and low market growth rate
- maybe small profits, also often losses
- decision needed to keep those or to eliminate them out of the portfolio

(cf. ibid. Page 98)

Those four areas are the general definition of the BCG segmentation matrix. A company should position its products into the respective fields, including the current turnover of a product, which is normally done by using different sizes of bubbles for the products. This generates a smart and quick overview about the current positioning of the portfolio if the company and the actions which are needed to place products in the right area.

For the Porsche 911, we can assume that this series is one of the cash cows of Porsche. This assumption is based on the fact that the sold cars are on a stable basis with no significant increases or decreases (cf. Porsche Geschäftsbericht 2015, Page 142 in pdf version). Regarding the market growth, it is hard to define if the “Sports Car Market” in Germany is that easy to define. According to a report for the whole year 2015, the Porsche 911 is based on the second place and the growth rate according to the previous year was 12,4% (cf. AMS Report January 2016). Therefore, the market growth rate is above 10% and Porsche should ask themselves, why the market share of the 911 is not increasing. A closer look shows that in the above mentioned report also other cars with totally other target groups are listed. For example an Audi TT which costs nearly half of the 911 Carrera. Therefore, it is difficult to integrate the 911 in this report. Based on the information gaining trough the references, the 911 is therefore defined from the author’s perspective as a cash cow.

4.3 Product Lifecycle Analysis

Another important instrument for the marketing strategy and an indicator for the range of marketing investment is the analysis of the product lifecycle. This analysis tries to show the way of a product from its introduction until the drop out of the market based on figures like profit, turnover and so on (cf. Weis, 2015, Page 303). In the general references for product lifecycles, generally there exists a four or five phases model, which is used regularly.

The five phases model, which will be used for this assignment, consists of the following.

- Launch – Product is launched in its latest version
- Growth – Turnover is increasing, not necessarily profits because of research costs which need to be covered first
- Maturity – Turnover increases to reach the maximum, profits are gained
- Saturation – Turnover decreases, growth rate is negative and profit is also decreasing
- Decline – turnover decreases strongly, growth rate negative, product short before elimination or replacement

The following figure visualizes the phases including the sales curve to give an overview.

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