Assignment-3

Course code- MKT518

Course Name- Integrated Marketing Communication

Submitted to- Dr. Avinash Rana

Submitted By- Shivendra Pratap Singh
Registration No. 12003407
 Introduction
The Cars24 platform facilitates the transaction and has an offline presence. Apart from selling
used cars, the company's services include paperwork such as transferring the car to the name
of the new owner which enables end-to-end transactions and offers an online auction
platform to businesses looking to sell their pre-owned cars. In 2019 the company started
offering verified used cars where the company offered a buyback guarantee on the vehicles
verified by inspection.
Cars24 raised US$50 million in Series A and Series B rounds combined. In 2018, it raised a
further US$50 million in Series C round of funding.
Cars24 raised US$100 million in a Series D round of funding in 2019. Investors in the
company include Sequoia Capital, Exor Seeds, partners of DST Global, Kingsway Capital,
KCK and Unbound and Moore Strategic Ventures. As a part of the series D round of funding,
the company received an investment from cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who
simultaneously became the company's brand ambassador. Cars24 raised US$200 million in
Series E round of funding in 2020 and became a unicorn startup as it was valued at over a $1
billion.

Sales promotion techniques to promote the product

1. Money off
The brand is offered at a lower price than what it normally sells for. It provides direct value
to consumers and is an unambiguous incentive to purchase. Money offs have a proven track
record of stimulating short term sales increase. But price reductions can be easily matched by
competition, and if used frequently can devalue brand image due to its association with low
price for long periods of time.
If the brand sells at the lower price for a considerable period of time, customers will associate
the brand with the lower price. And when the company terminates the sales promotion
scheme, the original price will seem high as customers have got used to buying at the low
price.

Even if the used car was half the price of the new car, it was easier to buy a new car from a
cash flow perspective. The entire experience to me made no sense because there would have
been hundreds of people like me who would like to buy a used car, but these challenges
would have prevented them.

2. Bonus pack

The company gives added value by giving consumers extra quantity at no additional cost.
Because price is not lowered, there is lesser risk of devaluing a brand image. With some
product groups, like cold drinks, it encourages buyers to consume more. Bonus packs are
useful when the product is consumed over a period of time.

Customers notice when a pack of detergent powder which normally lasted ten days, lasts a
few more days. And with such experiences build into them, they will go for the bigger packs
because they know that it will be useful. But with products, like chocolates, which are
consumed in one go, the consumer might not know the difference between consuming a
normal pack and a slightly bigger one.

CARS24 business model is straightforward. A seller wants the best price for his car and
wants it sold quickly. The buyer wants a good quality car at the lowest prices with easy
financing for the car. To make both sides happy, CARS24 focused on an end-to-end platform
sans geography and the challenges of localized selling.

3. Free Samples

Free samples may be delivered at home or given out in the store. The idea is that having tried
the sample a proportion of consumers will begin to buy it. This is an expensive but effective
way of getting consumer trial. But it may be ineffective if the brand has nothing extra to
offer.

The Strategy Story for having me here. It is improbable that anybody who has bought or sold
a car in India, or around the world will say that they have had a good experience. Even if they
have not personally purchased or sold a car, they have family and friends who have
experienced this, which is usually a bad experience.

Many years ago, I was looking to buy a car, and the budget that I had was appropriate for a
used car. The challenge was that I could not figure out how good the quality of used cars was,
and the second but more important thing was that I could not get financing for the car. I
ended up buying a new car because I needed to make only a 10% down payment, while for a
used car, I would have needed to make a 100% payment.

Measuring Performance of Promotional techniques

Hypersonic Advisory, a growth-focused consulting company, helped Cars24 launch their new
brand campaign that aims to position the brand as the one-stop shop for sale of used cars due
to the transactional convenience it offers.

As of today, Cars24 is the only offering in the market for used cars, that allows you to sell
your car, initiate payments and have a hassle-free transaction, all in the same day.

To further Cars24's ambition of growing three times in three months, Hypersonic conducted
numerous consumer tests and created a new campaign that consisted of four ad films
featuring Bollywood stars Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Mandira Bedi.

The Hypersonic team, led by Vani Gupta and Venkatesh Rangachari, with a combined
experience of 40 years in marketing, promises end-to-end planning and execution, wherein
business impact is demonstrated within 90 -100 days from the start.

The tagline of the campaign, "Car bechni ho, toh Cars24" emphasises the market leadership
that the brand aims to establish. The campaign plays effectively on the idea that today's
consumer values the convenience and trust with which a transaction is conducted in the used-
car selling space. It builds on word of mouth, by featuring real life like testimonials from
happy consumers. Each advertisement showcases a different need and situation, and how
Cars24 delivered beyond expectations in every situation.

"Cars24 had a simple brief. To triple business by the festive season. It was a tall ask and we
could have resorted to short-term tactical promotions but we chose to re-launch the brand
with a proposition that would set them up for the long term. This is a category that suffers
most from a trust deficit. Our campaign involves real-life relatable situations that highlight
the issues people face while selling their cars and how Cars24 aims to solve their problems
with utmost ease and convenience. With this relaunch, we believe Cars24 will appropriate the
position they truly deserve - that of being the undisputed category leaders," said Vani Gupta,
Co-founder and Partner, Hypersonic Advisory.

Vikram Chopra, CEO of Cars24, added, "In Hypersonic we have found a hands-on partner.
The entire campaign - from insights to execution was led by Vani of Hypersonic. She worked
very closely with the team to craft the right integrated communication strategy and showed
deep commitment in execution at every step. We worked with several service providers on
the recommendation from Hypersonic - like media experts, digital, creative, influencer
marketing and others. Given initial spikes we are seeing in business, we are very optimistic of
the transformational impact this will create in time to come.
3 Ethical issues related to advertisement and promotion of
advertisements of your choice you have witnessed recently.
There are many rules and regulations in the advertising industry so that businesses aren’t
causing harm and offence when promoting their products and services to their audience.
Moderators look out for instances of possible discrimination, gender equality, indecency and
more in order to protect viewers – vulnerable people and children in particular

1. Social equality
Just as technology and businesses do, the social scale and life itself evolves at a similar rate. This
means that what was acceptable to promote even 10 years ago may not be suitable to promote in
modern adverts.

Social equality can cover anything from same-sex marriages, single parent or divorced families to
racism and discrimination. Airbnb, a business once targeted for perceived promoting racial
discrimination within their ads, release an advertisement during the Super Bowl titled “We Accept.”

The advertisement was released just nine days after President Trump signed an order to temporarily
close America’s borders to refugees. It featured a montage of people of different nationalities along
with the words, “We believe no matter who you are, where you’re from, who you love or who you
worship, we all belong. The world is more beautiful the more you accept.”

By releasing this advert, it not only got people talking about the brand and their stance on the matter,
but it also reiterated the point that society shouldn’t tolerate any negative behaviour to one another
and your advertisements shouldn’t promote anything along those lines.
2. Advertising to children
For some businesses, children are an essential target market to advertise to. There’s no
escaping it. But there are issues surrounding marketing to children about topics like fast food
and entertainment that you need to watch.

Children are more susceptible to being easily led and influenced, so by advertising ethically,
you need to respect that and not take advantage of it. The best three ways to advertise
ethically to children are:

Communicate with parents. Parents are the decision makers, so make sure your adverts are
completely transparent. Children’s online craft store, Wild Works have recently started
making their safety features more prominent on their products for this reason.
Encourage kids to advocate the brand. Fan hosted blogs, art submissions or any ways the kids
can express themselves within their brand will help them interact with the brand themselves.
Produce original content. Kids want to be involved and educational content is a great way of
helping them engage with your brand. Keep your adverts concise, but maybe include a little
learning point in there too as a takeaway for the kids.
3. Politics
One of, if not the most divisive topic in the world. Politics. Not only is it such a crucial topic
for many but it’s also a touchy subject with a billion opinions flying about. That’s why you
need to be careful when advertising anything politics-related.

Your adverts shouldn’t be seen as trying to rally votes or influencing the reader with a
particular party view. This is a big no-no. That would be propaganda and the last thing you
want your brand to be tarred with.

However, political ads in non-broadcast media whose principal function is to influence voters
are exempt from the Advertising Code and are allowed. But they’re banned from being
shown live on TV. So, as you can see it’s a tricky, grey area.

We understand that advertisements can, of course, be emotive. They’re a way of expressing

your passion for your brand and products, but the best way to avoid advertising unethically
within the political sector is to remain politically neutral throughout all of your marketing
campaigns. Not only will this broaden your target audience and not close out specific party
followers, but it’ll also shine your brand in a positive light that you’re targeting the masses
and not trying to be exclusive.