Perceptual_Mapping

Perceptual Mapping Marketing MKT 421 August 30, 2010 Week 4 Perceptual Mapping Thorr Motorcycles is a company that manufactures motorcycles. It also sells other products to customers. Thorr is known for their luxury brand of motorcycles in marketing. I will address the three phases of the simulation on using perceptual maps in marketing in this paper. For each phase, I will describe the situation, describe my recommended solutions, including why, and the results of my decisions. Thorr Motorcycles is suffering from decrease in the sales of the Cruiser Thorr. The reason for the decline is because Thorr’s target market of 35-50 year old adults are growing older and are no longer interested in purchasing the motorcycle. Younger customers are not purchasing the Cruiser Thorr because the younger customers want cheaper priced motorcycles since they do not have a disposable income. The company must come up with another marketing plan that would change the way they are seen or launch the new motorcycle the RRoth. I plotted Thorr's different attributes on a perceptual map to determine how to proceed so Thorr can increase the company's sales. To find an appropriate solution for the loss of sales one of the solutions is to look at quality engineering. With Thorr there is a need to highlight the quality of the company's products. There are some aspects that are part of the quality engineering. These you can see in the design and style of the product. Even with all this information I still needed to make further decisions. In the second phase of the simulation, I had to decide which positioning strategy will have a bigger and better affect on Thorr Motorcycle Inc. After examining my options, I decided to launch the new motorcycle RRoth. I choose to introduce a product because I believe that with the development of the RRoth, with the lower price and a more modern look Thorr can attract the younger consumers. A cool and uniquely designed motorcycle accompanied by an inexpensive price is exactly what the younger consumers are considering when making their purchasing decisions. Thorr will still continue to accommodate the older audience’s by providing the superior brand image that is so important to them. With the decision that I made in the beginning of Phase II I would have to develop an innovative marketing plan for the new RRoth. My recommendations for price, promotion and how to market the product all stem from wanting to gain a younger group of customers. I believe the $13,000 to $15,000 price range is perfect for the new motorcycle. By placing the new RRoth in a lower price range we will be able to attract a larger volume of consumers who make up the consumer age group of 21 to 35. A lower price is exactly what this age group is looking for because this group does not have large amount of disposable income. The best way to promote the new RRoth motorcycle is to introduce it and advertise it through Hollywood films. These types of films seem best suited to follow along with the story line of the new motorcycle. In addition providing a RRoth giveaway through different sources will give a bit of hype on the new product. With today’s high technology world one of the best places to promote this new motorcycle is on the Internet. Using the internet will allow us to reach the selected target audience that we are looking for. So I believe the inexpensive pricing and unique new design will attract potential buyers to the Thorr Motorcycle website to look at the new motorcycle. Phase III required me to interpret the results of the market research to create perceptual maps for both the Cruiser Thorr and the RRoth. My findings for the Cruiser Thorr perceptual map are lifestyle image, price, quality engineering and service offering. Once again I needed to examine the market research to formulate a perceptual map for the new RRoth motorcycle. The parameters for the RRoth perceptual map are lifestyle image, price, quality engineering and service offering. I analyzed the marketing research correctly. However, the rating of eight that I had assigned for the lifestyle image was appropriate for the brand and consumers also consider it to be a status symbol. The simulation also showed that quality engineering ranked very high for consumers. According to the research, consumers are using this parameter to help in making their purchasing decisions. With this information I got that the RRoth was less expensive but still upheld the lifestyle image of the company. The differences between them are the Cruiser Thorr’s target audience once considered it to be a status symbol for a high price. The target audience for the RRoth sees it as a cool unique look for less cost. Going into this simulation I had no prior knowledge about motorcycles. If I understood more about the marketing of motorcycles or the retail of them, than I believe I would have had some opinion to the products positioning. But because of that, I had no expectations of the simulation in regard to how products were positioned. This simulation shows that the Cruiser Thorr has moved through the initial stages of the product life cycle that allow it to prosper and is now at the maturity stage. The RRoth is just moving into the first stage of its product life cycle. Because each of these products is in a different phase of the product life cycle, the company will have to adjust its marketing strategies to accommodate that stage of the lifecycle. This simulation made me look at how a product at the end of its lifecycle may mean the company will have to come up with a plan to fix the issue. References University of Phoenix. (2010). Using perceptual Maps in Marketing [Computer Software]. Retrieved from University of Phoenix, Simulation, Marketing 421 website.