Positioning strategies of Toyota and Tesla
Toyota and Tesla are two powerful and renowned names from the automobile manufacturing industry. Both are successful, experienced companies whose production is popular around the world. Despite being in the same industry, these two giants are different in many ways. Tesla is a comparably new company focused on electric cars, while Toyota is a traditional automobile manufacturer that improves its production by implementing different innovations. Both Toyota and Tesla chose their positioning and strategies carefully, which made it possible to become as successful as they are now. So, let’s go through these two companies to understand the reasons for choosing their exact positioning strategies.
Let’s begin with Toyota and first discuss the target audience of the company.
To easily identify Toyota’s target audience, let’s watch and discuss the following commercial presented by the company.
The commercial is very entertaining and interesting. A boy and his mom are the focus of the commercial. The viewer can feel the strong bond that mother and son have. They are doing everything together. The boy gets extraordinary powers to upgrade old automobiles.
He transforms everything into innovative Toyota automobiles and brings change to the environment. The commercial shows that Toyota fits everywhere and is suitable for different people. It seems like the boy is perfecting everything. After discussing the commercial it becomes clear that Toyota focuses on the Actualizers segment.
Target Market: Actualizers
Lifestyle and Values:
People belonging to the Actualizers’s target segment are usually goal-oriented, prosperous, and successful in everything they do. These people are very often considered perfectionists. They know what they want, and throughout their lives, they do everything to get what they want. Despite being overly ambitious, Actualizers don’t always take risks to get what they want. They value safety above everything and always choose it over risking.
The family always has vital importance for Actualizers and is in the first place among their priorities. These people tend to pay much attention to their children and always do everything to create a healthy lifestyle and environment for their families. They are usually educated and intelligent and like to keep up with time.
Attitude to Shopping:
The representatives of the Actualizer target segment are people with quite practical views on life. They know how to spend their money thoughtfully. First of all, they value the quality of the product they are buying. Thus, despite being careful with their money Actualizers can easily spend it on high-quality items. These people tend to choose comfortable clothing items over the stylish ones. They like to plan their purchases and buy everything from the same shop.
Marketing Strategy of Toyota
Nowadays, companies tend to put much effort and attention into marketing strategies. Carefully chosen marketing strategies can be the clue to success. Toyota uses different strategies to market and promotes its products.
The company uses personal selling, public relations as well as both traditional and unconventional marketing. Toyota actively uses personal selling with the help of dealerships. The sales personnel of dealerships promote the products of the company while trying to sell them to the potential buyers.
Toyota has a strong presence in traditional media. You can probably recall seeing ads from Toyota on different TV channels, magazines, etc. At the same time, Toyota is very active on different social media platforms as well as the webpage of the company. These channels are used to promote products, stay in touch with the customers, and be able to inform the news and updates related to the company.
Besides, Toyota successfully uses public relations to promote its products. The company is actively engaged in different social and environmental initiatives. The support and that Toyota provides for such activities help to create a positive brand image in the minds of people. As a result, this becomes an indirect way for the company to promote its products to the market.
Problem Removal
From the very beginning to this day the main goal of Toyota has been the manufacturing of reliable, high-quality vehicles and providing brilliant service to its customers. Also, the company wants to make continuous innovation to improve the sustainable development of society. The company stays true to its initial believes and principles and focuses on its customers.
Customers can be considered a priority for Toyota, and it does everything to bring safety, quality, and satisfaction to the customers both through its production and service. The company is indeed passionate and driven in ensuring the best for its customers. It continuously improves its products and works on bringing innovations to keep up with time and always stay on track.
Social Approval
Toyota uses different strategies to obtain social approval. The company is successfully implementing sustainable management which is quite popular nowadays. Toyota seeks to bring various benefits to the society and environment through its production and other activities. The company continuously improves its products to ensure the best offering that would also benefit the environment and society.
For example, Toyota presents innovative products like hybrid electric vehicles to cut on the fuel quantity and as a result decreasing pollution of the surrounding world. Besides all the ways mentioned above, Toyota also takes part in various environmental and social initiatives.
Message Strategy
Now, let’s analyze the following Instagram post by Toyota to reveal the message strategy of the company.
We can see quite a typical post for an automobile manufacturing company. The photo is remarkably inclusive and can speak to everyone. In the post description, we can see that Toyota doesn’t specify for whom is this car, but instead it shows that their cars are made for everyone. With this post, the company tries to build an emotional connection and a sense of belonging for the customers.
All the discussed details of the photo and the post indicate that Toyota has adopted the Everyman brand archetype. This archetype stands for connection, belonging, equality, and group identity. The motto of Everyman is “All men and women are created equal.” and the main idea of this archetype is commonality.
Continue with the positioning tactics of Tesla, let’s understand the target audience of the company.
To identify the target market that Tesla focuses on, let’s discuss the following commercial by the company.
In the commercial Tesla has collected different people already owning a Tesla car. They are talking about and sharing their experience and feelings related to their cars. The fact they own Tesla car tells about their successful career and financial stability. All the participants of the video seem enthusiastic and curious about new experiences.
They value safety and comfort. Some of them are with their family members which speak about the importance that family has in their lives. The description of all the characters of the commercial makes it easy to identify the target segment of Tesla. Tesla focuses on the segment called Balancers.
Target Market: Balancers
Lifestyle and Values:
People belonging to the Balancers’ target segment are usually struggling to balance their career and family. Both family and career have a very big importance for Balancers. They understand very well the whole importance of a successful and stable career and a load of work needed to achieve it.
Also, representatives of this segment know how important the family in every individual’s life is and do everything to dedicate as much time to family as possible. Balancers are progressive, ambitious, positive, and open-minded people in any aspect of life.
They are enthusiastic about new experiences and challenges. People from this segment like to control everything for security and stability reasons. Balancers highly value knowledge and try to learn new things all the time.
Attitude to Shopping:
Balancers are known for their loyalty to the brands they initially tried and liked. These people above all value the quality of products thanks the big amount of disposable income that they usually own. They will always readily spend their money on high-quality items and the ones they desire. Interestingly, Balancers are also deal-hunters and will never pay for the brand of a product. These people know what they want. They will try new products only if they need them.
Marketing Strategy of Tesla
Unlike other names in the industry, the expenditures of Tesla on marketing are minimal. Marketing strategies used by Tesla are widely discussed as the company doesn’t spend much money on marketing. Instead, they chose other ways to promote and market their products.
Of all car Brands, Tesla has the highest customer loyalty thanks to great customer experience and service. As a result, the customers of the company share their experiences and feelings related to Tesla to their friends and family. Tesla heavily relies on the mouth to mouth marketing. The company considers this way of marketing one of the most successful and reliable ones. It has also created a referral program to encourage people to share their thoughts and experiences related to the company.
At the same time, Tesla uses unconventional marketing to promote its products. The company is active on social media, specifically on Twitter and the company blog. These platforms are used to stay in touch with the customers and share all the news related to the company.
Also, Tesla actively engages its CEOs in the marketing of the company. This is specifically done on their social media platforms. For example, the social media pages of Elon Musk are quite popular for the charismatic, funny, and informative posts very often related to Tesla.
Problem Removal
Tesla was always standing for the transition to sustainable energy. The well-being of the environment and people is the priority of Tesla. It wanted to take care of its priorities through its products and bring big change into the world. Initially, the company wanted to show the world that electric cars can be equally amazing or even better than gasoline cars in their performance, comfort, and safety.
Tesla was able to produce all-electric vehicles that were quick and fun to drive. They indeed transformed the world and made a big step in moving the world towards a zero-emission future. The company continuously works to improve and perfect its technologies to make its offering even better.
Social Approval
When it comes to gaining social approval, in the line with different strategies, Tesla gives big importance to sustainable management. All the actions of the company are directed to bring as much benefit to the environment and society as possible.
The products of the company are all about sustainability and the care of people and the environment. Tesla produces vehicles that only need the energy to function, which makes cars durable, safer, and excludes fuel burning and pollution. Also, the company stands behind many initiatives aiming to benefit society and the world around us.
Message Strategy
Now, let’s go through the following Instagram post of Tesla to understand their message strategy.
We can see an incredibly unique and innovative car in the photo. The car is not like the ones that we see every day. It stands out and has something futuristic in it. It presents a completely new concept to the market. The car is revolutionary, and it seems like the brand tries to differentiate itself from the others.
All the discussed details indicate that Tesla has adopted the Outlaw brand archetype. This archetype stands for going against general standards, being different, and revolutionary. The motto of Caregivers is “Rules are meant to be broken.” and the main idea of this archetype is the rebel.
Summing up, we could successfully analyze two strong representatives of the automobile manufacturing industry and were able to identify their positioning tactics. Both Toyota and Tesla are experienced, innovative, and successful companies with dedication and passion in what they do. Check out the main page of our website for more posts like this.
