POSITIONING IS INEVITABLE-— | GD A CASE STUDY OF TATA TAS NANOThe TATA Group : Company History | TATA Founded by Jamsetji Tata in 1868 as trading company Pit steel mill, power utility, luxury hotel and international airline By 2011, 98 companies over 7 sectors. Company seen as Inspired trust & a strong commitment to ethics By TATA Code of Conduct, TATA promised fo improve the quality of life and Nano is a prime example. 09/23/16 2Objectives of the case TATA To comprehend the positioning strategy adopted by Tata Nano in India To determine the reasons for failure of positioning strategy adopted by Tata Nano in India ig understand the rationale behind the repositioning of Tata ano 09/23/16 3Tata Nano -History and Origin s unveiled in the 9° Annual Auto Expo on 10° January 2001 TATA Nano wi wines in India, in assoc iF (COTY) award, with JK Tyre Business Standard — Matoring Business Standard Indian ear of the year ‘ture and De: Good Design Award Museum of Archit together with The European 2010 Urban Studies Centre for Architecture Art Des Gold prize in the Best New Edison Awards 2010 Product segment Best Car Advertisement of the Bloomberg UTW , Aut 2011 Yooanre 4Tata Nano —Positioning Strategy TATA The target customers for Tata Nano were lower and middle income families, who aspire to upgrade to 4- wheelers from being 2-wheeler users. Management at Tata Motor’s tried to focus on the price factor and developed “Price Positioning Strategy” for Tata Nano. Tata Nano tried to position itself as the most Affordable Car in the world. The former Chairman of Tata, Mr. Ratan Tata, has envisioned Tata Nano to become a “People’s car.” The car was positioned as a people’s car since it offers comfort and affordability to every person but inadvertently Tata Nano got positioned as the “Poor Man's Car” and “Cheap Car’. 09/23/16 5Failure of Positioning Strategy Tata Nano was positioned on the price attribute dimension and was widely publicized as the world's cheapest car at | lakh. In India price serves to signal quality i.e higher price serves to signal higher quality and lower price serves to signal lower quality to the customer. Nano catching fire, which further weakened the trust for the brand ‘Nano’ .and people further believed that low price is because of low quality. Tata Nano’s distribution system was not also consistent with its positioning strategy «The Nano did not have a large enough dealer network in the rural areas and smaller towns . 09/23/16 609/23/16 7Tata’s Strategies for Revival TATA Tata Motor’s tried to correct its 4P*s , Firstly Tata Nano was re-engineered to fix ie issues related to the fire and customers were offered free safety upgrades for, their Nano, Secondly In September 2010, Tata Nano tried to reach its target sezment through electronic media channels but the advertisements have unfortunately been featureless and catering again to the theme of affordability. Tata motors also wee a new and unconventional distribution system, Tata Motor’s set up 210 'F Class showrooms’, each only about 500 sq ft in size and stocking just one car in smaller towns, and hired 1,200 people to man them. Management at Tata Motor’s tried to correct mistakes like promotion, distribution, and financing. 09/23/16 8Repositioning Strategy Tata Nano, decided to create a new niche for itself in august 2013 , by managing to move away from tag like the “world’s cheapest car to "smart city car’ J. Visual artistic and basic features positioning strategy : Tata Motor’s have repositioned Tata Nano by boasting of some “intelligent features” like Peg steering option, improved interior and exterior of the car and improved fuel efficiency and additional features like remote keyless entry, twin glove boxes, and a four-speaker Amphi Stream music system'with Bluétooth, USB and auxiliary connectivity. The new Nano is available with new personalization kits- Jet, Alpha, Remix, and Peach, 2. Promotional campaign positioning strategy: Tata Nano’s new campaign called ‘celebrate awesomeness’ is becoming popular among youngsters. 09/23/16 909/23/16 What's special09/23/16 109/23/16 12Conclusion Nano's positioning as a "cheap" car killed the aspirational element in the car and the performance of the model has been terribly underwhelming over the years. Although Tata Motor’s tried to correct its 4Ps it could not help Tata Nano to get the success. So finally after four years of it commercial launch, understanding the inevitability of positioning management repositioned Tata Nano as a "Smart City Car™. 09/23/16 13Learning’s and Implication for the Automobile Companies in India 1, Learning-1: A sound undeestandling of consumer behaviour is essential to the long. run success of the brand. Tata motor failed to understand the emotional need of their customers since India's middle class want cheap cars, but they don't want cars that seem cheap. 2. Learning-2: Developing an effective positioning strategy is inevitable nowadays for any organization. Tata Motor’s failed to develop a proper positioning for Nano as a result of which it got wrongly positioned as world’s cheapest car. TATA 09/23/16 1409/23/16 Thank Youl!!