Introduction

There are a wide number of cars in Australia today. What really matters while buying the perfect car is budget along with the purpose that actually needs to be satisfied. The present paper discusses about two well-known brands; Subaru and Toyota and their respective models; Subaru Forester and Toyota Yaris.

Subaru

Subaru is a Japanese brand that came into existence in 1953 (Subaru Global, 2015). Different models of Subaru are Outback, Forester, SUBARU XV, Levong, Impreza, Legacy, WRX, WRX STI and SUBARU BRZ (Subaru Global, 2015).

Toyota

Toyota Motors is a Japanese brand that was founded in the year 1937 in Japan. It is the world’s third largest car manufacturing organization (Faruque, 2013).

Toyota has a vast list of models. In cars they have 86, Aygo, Yaris Sedan, Yaris, Vios, Avalon, Avanza, Etios hatchback, Aurion, Corolla, Crown, ZELAS, Camry, Auris, Avensis and Etios. The different Vans are Vellfire, Alphard, Verso, Fortuner, Verso-S, Innova, Sienna and Previa. The different models of SUV are Land Cruiser 200, RAV4, 4 Runner, Land Cruiser 70, Land cruiser Prado, FJ Cruiser, Urban Cruiser, Tacoma, Hilux, Tundra and Sequoia. The various models for Commercial vehicles are Dyna 200, Dyna, Coaster and Hiace. The various models for Hybrid vehicles are Prius and Prius C (Toyota Global, 2015). Apart from these, Toyota also has a plug in hybrid named as Prius Plug-in and a fuel cell model named as Mirai. The Lexus is the luxury car provided by Toyota and has its own branding (Edwin, 2001).

These brands have so many different models to cater to the needs of all customers. As every customer has a different necessity and different budget, all major brands produce cars that fit in different price range and have different purposes to solve (Reed, 2015).

Market Segments

Market segmentation means dividing a wide market into small subsets. These subsets can be decided as per the customers or business or countries. The usual types of segmentation are demographical, geographical, behavioral and psychographic (Baker, 2008). Both Subaru and Toyota have defined markets to target. Toyota focuses the people belonging to the upper middle class and middle class. Subaru on the other hand, focuses mainly on sport oriented and outdoor activities consumers, including sponsored athletes and ski teams (Dilworth, 2006).  They calculate the potential group of customers. If it is a tourist place, one needs more commercial vehicles like cabs and taxis. Similarly, cars are provided according to segmentation like working mothers, college students, retired people and even on the average income per house. While Toyota is a customer oriented and well organized company, it has had the largest market share of loyal customers around the globe (Toyota Motor Corporation, 2003). Their market segment is based on behavioral pattern that involves providing the customer with best experience and with building healthy relationships for life. They can easily cater young drivers to full families. In many countries they have their own production plants so that they could cater to that country specifically. Like if they are based in Texas, they will provide more trucks like the ones driven by Texans. Similarly, in college areas, they will prefer hatchbacks and sports cars to trucks (Toyota Motor Corporation, 2003).

For Subaru, they have really grown aggressive and smarter by understanding the customers. They very well know how to target a college student and a family. They take the psychological and behavioral aspects into account. All their variants are diversified over all age groups that help them gain visibility in every house possible. The three brand competitors of Subaru Forester are Ford Escape, Toyota RAV4 and Honda CR-V (Ferrell, 2007).

Benefits of racing or rallying championships

There are various benefits of taking part in racing and rallying. While brand proposition and marketing is one of them, the company also gets a wide recognition from different brands by the use of stickers and decals. When one sees a particular car racing in tough situations and at such high speed, he is more likely to get impressed by the ruggedness and durability of the car. This long lasting feature makes the common man buy this car or model for daily use (Burridge, 2001). After seeing great performances in the racing and rallying competitions, Jim became a loyal customer of Subaru.

Pricing and Promotional Strategies

Pricing and promotional strategies have always been a critical topic for big brands like Subaru and Toyota. It mainly depends on different variables like market situation, cause and effect relationship and other influencing factors (Baker, 2008).

Subaru Forester

The tag line of Subaru is “Love. It’s what makes a Subaru a Subaru.” With this love theme Subaru has managed to build a relationship with their customers who treat their cars very much like a part of their family and prefer to keep them for a long time. Subaru promotions are focused on the need of a person (Subaru, 2014). All their advertisements either focus on pets, environment or socially active customers. By this way customers are able to relate with the car easily, thus making it apart of their family. The pricing strategies for Subaru are in line with the customer. Subaru provides financing options for recent college grads especially in USA (Subaru, 2014).

Toyota Yaris

This is the car made for today’s youth. It has all the features like a Bluetooth, navigation; touch screen, smart key etc. Toyota Yaris though was a new brand, did not actually had to penetrate the market because of the global presence and trustworthiness of Toyota. The value based pricing is based on direct marketing and by personal selling like car shows and online publicity (Yaris, 2015). It has started targeting younger audiences with the help of funky colors and ads that use bright and youthful colors (Bayley, 2009). The new ads will focus on entertainment ports in the car like multimedia systems and rear view camera. To target twenty year olds, Toyota has used pop music and animated screen artists in their promotions in the UK (Marketing Magazine, 2011).

Product Quality

Toyota Yaris

Toyota uses Kaizen strategy to improve the products on a continuous basis. They calculate the success of any model by the progress of customers and not employees. The whole batch is redesigned in case the quality standards are not met. While quality is the key to progress, continuous innovation helps to keep the model sales high (Toyota, 2015).

Subaru Forester

Subaru gives a five years genuine parts warranty and a 3-year new to old replacement warranty. This feature basically drives the customer to Subaru products. The company has recently launched the luxury version in the same car segment. This includes leather-upholstered seats, push button start and rain sensing wipers amongst many other new inclusions (Forester, 2015). These features attract the customers that can easily enjoy their old car with new features. Subaru Forester has an all wheel drive and a horizontal boxer engine that makes it suitable to fight weather conditions like storms, hairpin bends and even bumpy roads (Forester, 2012).

 

 

References

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Bayley, M., Emerson, T. & Wright, C. (2009) Car advertising and young people in the UK: content analysis. Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers- Municipal Engineer. Vol 162, Is- 2, pp. 69-77.

Brownsell, A. (2011) Toyota Yaris Push. Marketing Magazine. Retrieved from: http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/article/1083987/toyota-targets-younger-drivers-75m-yaris-push

Burridge, M. & Walton, J. (2001) Sports Sponsorship and Brand Development: The Subaru and jaguar Stories. New York: PALGRAVE.

Dilworth, D. (2006). Subaru targets segments to drive business. Direct marketing. Retrieved from: http://www.dmnews.com/digital-marketing/subaru-targets-segments-to-drive-business/article/93277/

Edwin, N. & Frambach, R. (2001) Creating Customer Value Through Strategic Marketing Planning: A Management Approach. Netherlands: Springer.

Faruque, O., Hoque, I. & Rahman, S. (2013) Analysis of Toyota’s Marketing Strategy in the UK market. European Journal of Business and Management. Vol.5, No.20.

Ferrell, O. & Hartline, M. (2007) Marketing Strategy. (4^th Ed). New Mexico: Cengage.

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Reed, P. (2015). Strategic Marketing: Decision making & planning. (4^th Ed). Melbourne, Australia: Cengage.

Subaru (2014) Social Values. Retrieved from: http://www.socialvalues.com/insights/2014/2/17/love-its-what-makes-subarus-marketing-successful

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Yaris (2015) Toyota Global. Retrieved from: http://www.toyota-global.com/showroom/vehicle_gallery/result/yaris/