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Sixt - Sixt in the City
2 B B2C
It must have been a very strange experience for people at the start of the
twentieth century, witnessing the mass arrival of the automobile. Henry
Ford clearly changed the face of our earth. His dream was to ‘democratise’
the car, building one the masses could afford. Legend has it that he finally
got it together around Christmas 1893 when he managed to get a combus-
tion engine up-and-running on his kitchen table. His wife, Clara, kept the
supply of petrol going while Edsel his son, who was just a few months old,
slept in a room next door. Working during the day as an engineer at an
electricity plant, he came home each night to perfect his invention. The big
day finally arrived on 4 June 1896 with the maiden voyage of his ‘quadri-
cycle’, actually a four-wheeled, 2-cylinder, 4 HP bicycle with a top speed of
32 km/h and no reverse gear. By 1927, there were 15 million ‘Tin Lizzies’, or
Model Ts on the streets of the new world, available in any colour, as long
as it was black.
Cars spread across the globe at lightning pace, altering transport for good.
And now, if you’re away from home, rental companies will rent you one,
in any colour… It’s a hugely competitive market, and one that recently has
undergone some serious change. In line with other sectors, mergers are
creating powerful players looking to undermine and underbid competitors.
Economies of scale, clear positioning and focus are extremely important.
To date, Sixt had focused mainly on the business-to-business market. Yet
with competition from Enterprise, which has a strong position on the US
market, and the recent merger between Europcar and Alamo, it is having
to rethink where it stands. Sixt has proven itself to be very profitable,
although mainly on the European market, with a far less prominent posi-
tion in the US. Sixt has decided therefore to expand its focus to include the
business-to-consumer market. It is believed that this shift will strengthen
the company by reducing the impact of seasonal fluctuation in b2b due
to summertime and holidays, and steering it clear from the lack of price
discrimination possibilities due to the exclusive use of fixed prices on the
b2b market. Now, while Sixt is already active on the b2c market with three
sub-brands, Sixt for the premium section, Sixti for low-cost consumers and
Sixt-Holiday, it is looking to continue its shift in focus. But here’s the point:
they need to do so without much of a marketing budget...
Why reinvent the wheel?
Without a huge advertising budget, Sixt had to get smart. Its solution:
target people living in the city looking for incidental and/or temporal
mobility. Surveys showed that, in addition to normal transport modalities
such as public transport and bikes, this target group quite frequently needs
a car to fulfil its needs. Add the hair-wrenchingly annoying and wallet-
emptying parking issues in modern-day cities, and Sixt seems to have found
a winner. Initially, Sixt has chosen to exclusively reside in and aim at larger
cities. Furthermore – and here’s the smart move – Sixt is setting up partner-
ships with public transport companies in those cities with major databases
of their very target group. As a result, using direct mail, they are managing
to reach urban consumers looking for travel solutions that are complemen-
tary to public transport. Smart move.
Another angle to the urban/public transport approach is their
team-up with a free newspaper that is circulated on public trans-
port: at train stations, metro stations, and so forth. This has again
vastly expanded their audience to include those who perhaps are
not in a public transport database. By advertising in the paper,
Sixt has again managed to strike at the heart of their target group
at the time and place where it counts with a highly relevant
message. As people read the paper on the train or metro to and
from work, they even have the time to read it! In a true partner-
ship, all Sixt rental cars are equipped with a Metro distribution
point, securing a higher circulation to the free newspaper.
The third part of the plan has been implemented at Sixt’s tradi-
tional European home ground: the airport. No other car rental
company offers the same presence at airports as Sixt does. Despite
this being their traditional stronghold, they again sought out an
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Coolbrands: Maarten & Anouk in discussion with Thomas Wolters
innovative cost-effective approach, teaming up with a company
specialised in poster campaigns, and a regular Sixt partner for
‘guerrilla campaigns’: a cost-effective and alternative route to
communicating with the target group. Instead of standard bill-
boards, the company uses the partitioning walls that are used
when reconstruction takes place at the airport. These walls were
painted Sixt orange and function as a background for a 3D anima-
tion of a man walking the wall heading for the nearest Sixt office.
Since the invention of this new advertising space also benefits the
airport, the company managed to negotiate an interesting rate.
Like most companies, Sixt wants to be the best in its sector. It will
focus on Europe and expects to achieve its objective within the
next three years. If they manage to continue their growth on this
type of budget…
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CEO Erich Sixt | Number of employees 2,025 | Company turnover
€1,4b worldwide | Brand values innovation, first class driving, pay
economy and good service | Brand promise A widely known brand
with a positive image worldwide | Target group B2B, B2C and
travel industry | Primary advertising media Sixt stations, radio,
print and internet