Case Study On Market Development Of Castrol Auto Lubes In Chinese Market

With more and more automobiles are owned by Chinese families and the material living standards continue to increase, China’s automobile industry continued to show an upward momentum. In2010the amazing production and sales of cars in China hit a new height, both the amount went over18million and ranked first in the world. Today, China has become a big consuming nations for the lubricate oil, the world’s major lubricate oil giants focuses on the Chinese market. Due to the sustained and rapid development of China’s economic and high-income groups take more share in total consumers, the drivers’consumption attitudes shows a change, high-end lubricant products gradually became well known in China, the high-end market of lubrication oil has entered a period of rapid development.This paper takes the British Castrol company as the main research object. Through analysis on the British Castrol company’s market positioning, brand positioning in Chinese market and research about its marketing strategy implemented in China, this paper unsealed that the British Castrol company with a reputation of "Century Classic, Lubrication Expert" can make success in Chinese market is because they set the brand as the company’s core value, set up the concept that "It’s More Than Just Oil, It’s Liquid Engineering", and established bases as the advanced technology, superior product performance, and comprehensive distribution network to constantly improve the satisfaction and loyalty of high-end target customer groups thus they can achieve stable profits and max revenue.In the first part this paper gives a general introduction about the present situation of domestic auto lubricants market in China, and also explains the background and significance of the case studies. The second part is mainly about the literal review about the theory related to this case; in part three this paper shows an objective description about the research case; In part four, the case about Castrol’s market development in China is analyzed under the theoretical framework, while analyses the difficulties and the problems faced by small and medium-sized lubricant oil companies in domestic market. Part five illustrates the Castrol Company’s advantages and makes suggestions to market development for small and medium-sized lubricant oil companies in China. The main conclusion of this paper is:the small and medium-sized lubricant oil companies in China should learn from Castrol’s "value" based marketing strategy in China to develop and expand market, establish their own core competence, and form the unique advantage on the market. For the problems that generally faced by most of the small and medium-sized lubricant oil companies in China, say, blur brand positioning, inability of technical innovation, chaos in customer management, this paper takes experience from the British Castrol Company and suggests that they should always adhere with customers, high value-added products for high-end customers, promote the value based marketing strategy. Because this win-win marketing strategy has a long-term and important practical significance for small and medium-sized lubricant oil companies in China.