Abstract

Devising Rebranding Strategies for Grande MKII in an underperforming State

By Vivek Gupta

TML, is a leading passenger & utility vehicle manufacturers companies in India launched their UV- Sumo Grande in april 2008, promising to be a city family car that looks like an SUV in 3 variants GX, EX and LX. Even after a series of advertisements and promotions the product failed to impress the consumers because of series of quality issues. The company conducted a market research in april-may 2009 to assess from their customers about their experiences with Sumo Grande- key objective of the research was to determine key dislikes / issues / complaints with Sumo Grande among its current owners- which would provide cues to client and aid in improving their offerings. Based on the above research the company made appropriate changes and re-launched the product in December 2009 as Grande MKII. But even after the 18 months since its inception, Grande MKII has not been able to pick up in sales or impress the customers. With the rise in market share of its competitors, Grande MKII is struggling to hold its ground. The project aims towards finding out the various reasons due to which Grande MKII has failed to impress the customers. The project involves selecting a region where Grande MKII is doing good and then applying these learning in an underperforming region. When looking at Grande we see that except Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, Grande is not able to perform in any of the states. So Maharashtra was selected as a base region of whose learning were modified and adjusted and then applied to an underperforming region, which in this project, was chosen to be Gujarat.

A series of steps were taken to understand the market in Gujarat. And various activities were undertaken so as to help Grande MKII hold its ground. Care was taken to implement a system which offers a 360 degree change and which can be sustained in the long run also. If everything goes according to the plan, then the same learning will be implemented to other underperforming states also so as to make Grande MK-II the market leader in the SUV segment, which it was made to be.