| Following the reform and opening over 30 years , China has changed dramatically. At the same time, China has become the important part of the world's automobile market. China is now the main force at driving the global automobile market's increase.Due to the early proper strategical decision, the Audi brand holds a leading position in the Chinese exclusive sedan market. On the 16. of November in 2008, FW-VW has officially introduced the local completely new Audi A4L.The Audi A4L Sedan has been introduced to China on basis of three factors. They are the german Audi Group's product strategy; the demand of the B-class exclusive sedan market and the inevitability of one products innovations or update, as well as the product developing strategy of FAW-VW automotive company ltd..Audi A4 is the model with the highest sale volume at Audi Group. So the german Audi Group will constantly develop new generations of this model; as the rapidly developing automobile market putting forward new requirements against the products, the product update is the necessary methods to fullfil the requirements; FAW-VW manufactured mainly the Audi A6 and Audi A4. Not only for the increase of the market range, but also for the constantly holding of the leading position of the Audi brand, FAW-VW should think much of the two supporting products, and especially the Audi A4 of B-class products, which is standing before a dramatically expanding market.The new product of Audi A4L consists of over 10 models as the 1.8 TFSI, 2.0TFSI, 3.2 FSI quattro with the range from standard model, comfort model, luxury model to flagship model. As to colors, there are in the product Audi A4L brilliant red, ice silver, phantom black, ibis white, condor grey and deep sea blue etc..Facing to the hot market competition and the impacts of the macro environment, Audi A4L has some marketing problems to solve. They are the external market competition, the alteration of the macro market environment, the problem of product's supply, the barrels at product's communicating, such as the product's diversification, the impression of a governmental sedan of the Chinese people, various opinions against the lengthening of the car body of the Chinese people, the scale of the dealers network and the new challenges from the development of the internet.According to the analysis with the potter's five forces model, the competition stress coms from the price negotiating abilities of the suppliers for parts and manufacturing materials for Audi A4L; the price negotiating abilities of the individual and the fleet customers; the middle exclusive sedans with smaller engine displacement carrying environment friendly substitution energies; the non-kernel competitors such as the Teana of Nissan etc., as well as the competition with the kernel competitors of the BMW 3er and Mercedes Benz C-class.Through the SWOT analyzing procedure, the strengthens, the weaknesses, the opportunities and the threatens of Audi A4L are carded. In comparison with the competitors, the all new Audi A4L has not only strengthens at measures and performance etc., but also mature manufacturing base and dealers network. On the other side, the Audi brand has not completely replaced one of the BMW and the Mercedes Benz in the traditional meaning of"driving BMW and sitting in Mercedes Benz". Furthermore, the regional distributing of the dealers is not very symmetrical. With the increase of the purchasing power of the customers and the encouraging polices at the automobile industry of the government, the Audi A4L has met a very perspective market; the abolish of the"FBU"provision has made Audi a good opportunity to optimize cost because of fewer tax; nowadays, people have attached more and more importance to the environment protection, so that the Audi A4L carrying the high efficiency environment friendly techniques can get more chance to leave the non-kernel competitors behind. The Audi China founded in Beijing brings also some fundamental advantages at expanding the local purchasing for the Audi brand. Finally the break out of the"internet culture revolution"has provided to the product with a wider"spreading platform". Opportunities and threatens exist together. For the Audi A4L, there are also certain threatens. Although the China automobile market has increased under the global financial crisis, some possible threatens should not be completely neglected. Recently the BMW brand has entered into the governmental purchasing list. Of course this fact will not affected the Audi A4L terminally. But Audi A4L must face more market stress. As an exclusive model, the Audi A4L has some product rate of the models with higher engine displacement, this will lead to some negative effect on the sale volume because of the encouraging policies to the models with smaller engine displacement of the government. The above mentions abolish of the"FBU provision"will also bring some threatens to the Audi A4L. The reasons is, that Audi A4L will face more intensive market competitions because of the absorption of more competitors into this market where the Audi A4L lies.With the developments specially for the Chinese customers, the Audi A4L will open an all new market segmentation of the combination of sport and comfort. That is an all new middle exclusive sedan market segmentation. So, from one side, the Audi A4L still belongs to the range of"middle exclusive sedans". But it will also open a new room in the market just like the"blue see"in the , so that the market demand will also be broadened.After choosing the market segmentation and the analysis against the target groups, a correct market positioning for the Audi A4L is necessary. This work is divided into 3 stages. They are investigation stage about the customers wishes, the analyzing stage and the positioning stage of the product or the market. Whereas the innovated integration of the comfort and the sport characters, the Audi A4L is positioned as a sedan with"perfect integration of comfort and sport". This concept will also be widely used as a basis for the market communications.After the deeply analysis of the Audi A4L from all sides, in consideration of the actual marketing problems, a set of marketing strategies from sides of product marketing, pricing, promotion and place, based on the 4P marketing theory, are systematically designed. In these strategies, the product technologies should be actively researched, developed and utilized during the whole lifecycle of the Audi A4L, especially the technique about the new substitution energies; the production process and the product quality should be continuously optimized; the service quality should be improved; the customer's complaint should be properly solved to improve the customer's satisfaction level the brand image. As to pricing, all sides as factors such as customers value estimation, competitors pricing should be considered, so that the pricing can bring more customers and satisfying profit, as well as a wider covering of the customers. In the field of promotion, the communication work should be more actively organized. At the same time, the excellent performance at some car games should be more widely introduced, so that Audi brand can more strongly compete against the brands of BMW and Mercedes Benz. For the distribution network, more dealers, especially Audi-Terminals should be involved in the Audi brand distribution. On the other side, the technique knowledge management, the service qualification of the dealers should be more strongly supervised or improved. So that the dealers can contribute more at the meaning of increasing volume.All in a word, through the combination of the strategies and concret measures or activities, Audi A4L should not only be able to reach its volume target, but also to contribute at continueing the leadership in the China sedan market. |
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