I am a bit of a car enthusiast. Of late Skimming through the Autocar magazine i came across the sales figures for the recent period (I can not recall it was monthly or something else) of the car sales in India. As usual Maruti has topped the charts. The best seller being Alto. And the star performer, the new Swift.
The Autocar magazine also declared Swift as the car of the year 2011. Indeed a really good car, deserving candidate.
The new Swift was launched at approximately the same time the new Tata Vista was launched. Vista came up with the new campaign ' Move up the sedan class'. Pretty aggressive campaign. If you go to the car's website, They have kept an open challenge for Swift. Apparently, they consider Swift their largest competitor or its a strategy to be compared with the market leader, so that you can at least capture the next best spot.
When it comes to resources for research then I have to admit that I am impecunious. Only the internet is my savior . On GOOGLING it I came across few websites where auto enthusiasts have posted their opinions. After reading quite a few of them I came to an APPARENT conclusions. First I feel that the original Indica has still some sort of cabbie image attached with it, which of course the Swift does not have. Second, the brand loyalty which the original Swift enjoys is huge! After all it is a good car. Third the trust and faith in the after sales services which Maruti Suzuki has garnered over the years.
But, Vista marketing team has done tremendous amount of work in marketing and promotions to change things in its favor. It is all over the internet, certainly much more audible than the competition. Inviting people to its website to look at the direct comparison between Swift and Vista. Have a look at the link
http://www.cars.tatamotors.com/tatavista/openchallenge.html
I went to the car's website, which welcomes you with a video of the car.
And, quite frankly I was unable to exactly understand the purpose of this video. The campaign for the car is "move up the sedan class", the car has all in all pretty decent exterior and I am particularly impressed with the interiors considering also the price at which the value is being offered.
The beige colored interiors look really refined. The features offered are also more and better as compared to the other cars in the segment. These attributes are the true strengths of the offering which can actually impress me as a consumer. I could not understand why these have not been stressed in the ad. I could have been impressed or might have uttered WHOA! when i would have seen a sports car, one of the jaguars doing these stunts. But I know this car is not meant for such rough acts. It does not evoke any emotion. May be I am wrong. May be they are trying to target the youth. But out of curiosity I asked few of my friends to form a focus group and tell me their views over this ad, and mind it all of them are young and in the near future all are buying cars. And no one was actually impressed. They are targeting young people, the young India, majority of which would be buying their FIRST car. It brings a sense of bliss inside me conjuring that feel of holding the steering of my first car, which I have bought out of my own achievement. I particularly could have empathized with a young man driving, happy , enjoying the AC, playing some good RDB music, proud of his car, admiring its interiors and once in while pushing the throttle also to accommodate the demands of adrenaline. Further, we could not associate the color chosen in the ad with "move up the sedan class" theme. SEDAN CLASS, it evokes an urbane sense of luxury. The other colors offered are SO beautiful. Why not chose the Red or the Blue one? Why not stress on the strengths and the actual reason and emotions that can induce me to buy Vista, A really good under rated car!
Soliciting your opinions.
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