As Director - Sales & Marketing for Nissan at Hover Automotive India, Nitish Tipnis witnessed many challenges of a late entry in the market. He tells us about building a rapid network, talking to consumers in a language they know and future plans…
Q] Nissan has been a late entrant in the automotive industry. What does it take to establish a brand among other giant names?
What others did in a decade, we need to do in five years. While most other auto manufacturers do marketing and sales themselves, we are structured differently; our marketing and sales company is at arm’s length from the manufacturing firm. Our methodology for brand presence too is very different (from others).
Being a late entrant also has its pluses – we know what consumers want and how they think. Hover Auto is made of domain specialists, we need to have the knowledge to have a pierce-the arrow strategy, to be able to hit the consumers’ mind and get higher mindshare at a faster pace.
Our first challenge was to get a network. We began building a block strategy where we sign up with dealer partners and ensure we are looking at a three to four-year horizon of what will be the population of cars in a given sector and how we will be able to service those. Today we are already at 70% of the total automotive footprint in just two-and-a-half years. In addition to 79 dealers, we have a 24x7 roadside assist in 1,681 towns.
Q] How does Nissan differentiate from competition through its products?
We started off by bringing in fully imported models, the Teana and the X-Trail at the upper end of the market.The Teana is a luxury sedan at a reasonable price, with the advantage of plush comfort; our communication equates it to a spa. We were the first to offer cool seat air conditioning while others were talking about hot seats. We also offered moonlighting in the car.
X-Trail is a full-blown SUV we launched in 2009. While these launches were in progress, we were working on Micra, a car specifically made for Indian roads. It looks very small, but has one of the highest headroom and elbow room, with much detailing. We targeted Micra to people who owned and used a car in the age group 30- 36 and had a double income. A celeb who identified with its positioning and features was Ranbir Kapoor.
The second car we produced here was Sunny, a mid-sized sedan thatgives the comfort and space of a high-end sedan. We had a clutter breaking campaign to communicate this with ‘the Caaar.’It clearly established its edge in the market and we’ve been able to grab a high share of the segment. Brand recall did translate into sales.
Then came the Evalia, positioned as an urban utility vehicle in a market where cars are all about friends and families travelling together. We based its campaign on togetherness and fun. Evalia’s USP is fuel economy and comfort; we have attention to detail such as fold out trays. We are also the only Japanese company having a sports car, the 370Z.
That’s a list that quite stands out, right? We differentiated by providing value for money which didn’t translate to be the cheapest but ranked high on value. Besides, our cost of servicing till date is the cheapest across segments.
Q] Often,the auto industry over-emphasizes the features in communication to consumers, and this technical communication fails to strike a chord with consumers. How does a brand tackle this tendency?
Talking about features is very manufacturer driven and yes, it does get very technical. Consumers don’t look for technology when they buy a car, it is understood that the technology we are providing is contemporary and cutting edge.
Technology is nobody’s domain anymore; consumers are more interested in how it’s ‘going to work’ for them, hence we want to demystify it. For instance, cost of ownership translates to ‘savings per litre’ or kilometer – that’s how you communicate it. If we’re talking to a kids-centric family, remote-sensing locks could be an exciting feature.
When the buyer first goes into the showroom, our communication is about how our engines are lighter so we provide a better acceleration at a better cost.It is a smallerhole on the consumer’s pocket due to fuel economy. Our training to all consumer touch points and dealerships ensures all this communication is consumer-centric.
Q] What have been your other initiatives to reach out to consumers?
We launched the Nissan student management programme two years ago with management institutes and spoke with students to get them participating. This year, we received 6,500 entries across India through digital.
Of these, we select 30 students through an independent panel and incubate them for six months. We give them a car and stipend and get them to do projects of their choice along with our local dealer partners, sales team and head office. The objective is to seed the brand Nissan while our consumers are students, so that they spread the word in the digital media.
We were the first to launch a film specifically using digital media; our Facebook contest hunted for contestants who’d act with our brand ambassador in the film titled ‘Star of India’. The entire film was made through Facebook and Youtube and we had a song-and-dance sequence with dancing Micras!
We are not only focusing on traditional media, we believe 97 % consumers intending to buy a car go to the electronic medium to research, then come to a showroom armed with information. Our focus is to converge all this at the point of sales.
Q] What can we expect from Brand Nissan in 2013?
We are going to launch at least ten more models across different segments in the coming three years. Our vision is to get to 8% market share by 2016.
Q] What are game-changers in Nissan’s journey?
• Time to market. Getting a dealer network rapidly, covering a footprint.
• Unique communication for different products but weaving it together in a single minded brand campaign around the idea of ‘innovation’ and ‘excitement’.
• Nissan understood early that India is a highly aspirational and value-conscious market hence delivered cars across segments with the cheapest cost of ownerships.
Q] What are the current consumer trends in the auto segment?
More people buying more cars per house hold! As infrastructure improves, the need to use cars for different applications increases. There is no gap between the aspirations of consumers in Tier II cities and Tier I cities because of media exposure.
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