Preliminary Research On Brand Architecture Strategy In Automotive Industry

Since 1990s the structure of the global automotive market has changed obviously. The newly developing automotive markets in some countries are growing very quickly, which become the main force for the increase of the global automotive market. The high growth rate makes the Chinese automotive market become the focus of the world. With the high developing speed of the domestic automotive market, the consumers are becoming more and more rational, when they make their decision. Nowadays the consumers care more about the brand of the car, therefore, a lot of automotive enterprises start to put the emphasis of their strategy on the brand construction. Because of the diverse demand of the consumers about cars, in order to meet the different needs of the consumers and also to increase the market share, the automotive enterprises have to provide diverse products, what makes the brand system of the automotive enterprises become more and more complicated. That's why the brand architecture strategy is becoming an important part of the enterprise strategy.As the first joint venture of the passenger car in China, Shanghai Volkswagen has played a unique role in the history of the Chinese passenger car. Shanghai Volkswagen has experienced the glorious days in the 1980s and the 1990s. But since the competition of the automotive market is becoming more and more intense, the market share of Shanghai Volkswagen keeps decreasing. General Motor Shanghai has been the No. 1 of the annual sales in the past three years. In the competition with General Motor Shanghai, Shanghai Volkswagen has recognized the advantage of the multi-brand strategy and the necessity of implementing the brand architecture strategy.This thesis combines the theory of brand architecture strategy with the reality of Shanghai Volkswagen, explains how Shanghai Volkswagen implements its brand architecture strategy from three different levels, which is corporation brand, family brand and product brand, and gives some suggestion about how to implement and optimize the brand architecture strategy of Shanghai Volkswagen in the future. It is suggested that Shanghai Volkswagen speed up to improve the image of the enterprise, or build a new brand which is relative independent, in order to enter the high level market successfully and obtain more benefits. It is also suggested that Shanghai Volkswagen distribute the resource of the enterprise reasonably between different product brands, according to their roles in the brand system, in order to obtain the biggest return with the limited resource and improve the ability of obtaining benefits continuously. The ultimate objective of the suggestion is to maximize the profits of the enterprise and ensure the survival and development of the enterprise.