Toyota for example as a leading car manufacturer has a segment that is focused on

middle high income earners as is the roll out of their Camry, Parado Land Cruiser.
And for the high income class people they have the Toyota Altis Sport Model and the
Toyota Fortuner. Toyota has a remarkable ability to move from one part of car section
to another from production of sedan sport cars, buses or station wagons manual or
automatic gearing.

Market segmentation can help organizations to serve customers more efficiently and
effectively with higher profits (Yang 2012) Market segment can come in the grouping
of:

 Gender
 Age
 Family stage life-cycle
 Education
 Income
 Ethnicity
 Wealth and Time
Segmentation can be done in a managerial top down idealization or a customer
based bottom up approach.

Targeting
It is unlikely that an organization will be able to serve all the market segments (Baker
cited in Yang 2012). Targeting serves to effectively market (campaign efforts) to
concerned consumers by eliminating others (Garberson 2015). Targeting involves
evaluating market segments and deciding which segment one will like to serve or
pursue (Yang 2012) Targeting implies the process of creating marketing mix for
usage by one or more segments that was identified during segmentation (Claudie et
al 2008).

Two important factors to put into consideration when targeting is attractiveness and
compatibility with company (Claudie et al 2008). Nancy Garberson, owner of
Marketing and Communication Inc., and a University Marketing Professor teaches
that the best way to target intended group is to first conduct some research, get
information from consumers and compare with your assumptions, then finally perform
a SWOT analysis for improvement.

In the music industry, songs range from different segments all to the appeal of varying
groups of people. Young people generally are well targeted by Hip Hop, RnB, Rock
and other high energy music in that niche. Older people may want more relaxed,
country music, slows, or gospel or something spiritual…?

Positioning
Positioning involves the way a company’s marketing activities are perceived by the
end customers with regards to marketing strategies used by the competitors (Claudie
et al 2008). Positioning has to do with escalating a brand image so as to get them
fixed in the minds of potential customers. (Garberson 2015). Positioning stands to
place products in the mind of prospects.

Toyota brand positioning:

TOYOTA

“Moving Forward”

Toyota’s uses both differentiation and low cost as generic strategies to try and gain a
competitive advantage over their competitors in the automotive industry. The market
scope that Toyota uses is a broad one that encompasses nearly every type of
customer that is in the market to purchase an automobile. Toyota is able to target
such a large market because they have something for everyone.

Toyota provides vehicles for all price ranges. From the low price Toyota Corolla line
of cars to the high priced luxury line of cars and SUVs with Lexus, Toyota has
something for everyone.

Toyota’s current grand positions are product development and offensive/strategies

for industry leaders. Product development is very important for Toyota due to the fact
that they must come out with new fresh ideas every year in the automotive industry.

As per Toyota ‘s success depends on their good quality detailing and ideas which is
mostly out of the box. There most of the successful cars have different taglines. Such
as,

GT 86 (TRD special edition)- “grab the steering feel the excitement”

Toyota Avanza- “smart in style”

The Toyota product development system is known as Lean Manufacturing.Toyota

differentiates on several levels form their competitors. First of all, Toyota has been
very successful in differentiating on the basis of superior design and quality. This has
led to Toyota being able to create a brand image that is very strong and one that
brings to mind quality, long lasting cars when a potential customer sees it. Along with
differentiation Toyota also uses low cost to try and gain a competitive advantage in
the automotive industry. “Toyota is (or was at the time) the low cost producer in the
industry. Toyota achieves its cost leadership strategy by adopting lean production,
careful choice and control of suppliers, efficient distribution, and low servicing costs
from a quality product.
POP’s -

· Eco- Friendly vehicles

· Reliability

· Innovative

· Efficiency
POD’s-

· Affordable

· Easy maintenance

Toyota is so much popular for its affordability and easy maintenance cost. As Toyota
said before “Toyota is for everyone” which apparently means that any income level
person can afford Toyota. Toyota’s production line manufactures almost all sort of
vehicle starting from commercial, suv’s, sedans, 4WD, compact family sedans etc.

As per the following commercial Toyota was able to define the friendship through a
car.
Music Band “One Direction” telling the meaning of friendship where its

“All about freedom”

“All about Trust”

“All about protection”
“All about happiness”

“All about saving”

“All about Sharing”

“All about comfort”

All these terms defines friendship where Toyota VIOS was meant to be a good friend
who will always provide these services keeping friendship in mind.
BMW STP can be specified as the base of the marketing efforts of the company.
BMW, as well as, any other business entity has to divide population into different
categories according to a set of certain criteria and develop products and services that are
particularly attractive to this specific group.
Segmentation, targeting and positioning is important because BMW cannot offer products
and services that are attractive to all members of population in an equal manner.

Segmentation implies dividing potential customers into different groups

according to certain criteria such as
 age
 social class
 lifestyle
Segmentation can be divided into four types:
 Geographic
 Demographic
 Behavioral
 Psycho-graphic.
Targeting
Targeting is following stage after Segmentation this stage is associated with selection of
specific group(s) as a target customer segment.
BMW target only Niche Market (Class A) , Who wanted a car that spoke of their success
with exceptional performance and a brand that stood for prestige and achievement.
And they start to Product Mini Coper to cover another segment in the Market.
BMW is targeting a market of upper class people working on high positions or owning their
own business with high income.
Also it doesn’t matter if it is female or male, they are about 30 years old and over, on the
successful position at work.

Positioning
BMW stands for both performance and luxury.
BMW’s logo is one of the most distinctive and globally recognized symbols ever created.
Positioning is the last stage in segmentation, targeting and positioning and this stage
involves selection of the marketing mix that is relevant to the chosen target customer
segment in the best possible manner.

BMW Group uses mono-segment type of positioning and accordingly, the company makes
an appeal to a single customer segment. In other words, BMW Group product portfolio
only comprises expensive vehicles at a premium level and the company does not have
budget vehicles in its portfolio to target individuals and households with a smaller budget.

Differentiation
 BMW Group pursues product differentiation business strategy and differentiates its
vehicles on the basis of design, performance and advanced features and
functionalities. Moreover, high level of integration of information technology and
internet, as well as, electromobility represent solid grounds of BMW Group
competitive advantage.

 Sometimes new technology has unanticipated benefits. When BMW introduced Wi-
Fi to its dealerships to help customers pass the time more productively while their
cars were being serviced, more chose to wait rather than use loaner cars, an
expensive item for dealers to maintain
 By combining the seemingly incompatible benefits of luxury and performance,
BMW has found great success in the American automotive market.
BMW was able to simultaneously achieve:
 (1) Point of difference on luxury and a point-of-parity on performance with respect
to U.S. performance cars like the Chevy Corvette
(2) Point of difference on performance and a point-of-parity on luxury with respect
to U.S. luxury cars like Cadillac. The clever slogan “The Ultimate Driving Machine”
effectively captured the newly created umbrella category: luxury performance cars.

EX: - BMW segmentation, targeting and positioning

It has to be acknowledged that segmentation, targeting and positioning for BMW
presented in below Table is conducted in a broad manner, without making distinctions
between various models of a particular brand. Each of the brands within BMW Group can
be subjected to further segmentation, targeting and positioning as well.

For example, table below categorizes MINI target customer segment as 25-45 year-old
males and females within Full Nest 1 life-cycle (married couple and youngest child under
six) with a high loyalty to the car as a product, but not currently using MINI products.
However, specific models such as MINI Roadster, MINI Clubman, and MINI John Cooper
Works that belong to the same MINI brand have been developed for different customer
segments.

The following table illustrates BMW segmentation, targeting and positioning:

Type of Segmentation
segmentation criteria BMW Group target segment

BMW MINI Rolls-Royce

Region Domestic/international Domestic/international Domestic/international

Geog-raphic Density Urban/rural Urban Urban

Age 20-65 25-45 40+

Gender Males & Females Males & Females Males & Females

Bachelor StageNewly
MarriedCouples
Full Nest I
Full Nest II
Full Nest IIFull Nest IIIEmpty
Full Nest III
Nest I
Bachelor StageNewly
Empty Nest I Empty Nest II
MarriedCouples
Empty Nest II Full Nest I Solitary Survivor I
Solitary Survivor I Solitary Survivor II
Demog-raphic Life-cycle stage
 Solitary Survivor II

Income High High High

Professionals &
Occupa-tion Professionals & executives executives Professionals & executives

Degree of ‘Hard core loyals”Soft ‘Soft core

loyalty core loyals”Switchers’ loyals”Switchers’ ‘Hard core loyals’

ReliabilitySense of
ReliabilitySense of ReliabilitySense of achievementExpression of
Benefits sought achievementSpeed achievementSpeed high status

Persona-lity Determined and ambitious Easygoing Determined and ambitious

non-usersregular users,ex- potential users, first-time

Behavi-oral User status users users first-time users regular users

Social class Middle classUpper class Middle class Upper class

Psychographic Lifestyle[1] AspirerSucceeder ExplorerReformer Resigned