The global electric vehicle (EV) market
Background
Industry Context
The global electric vehicle (EV) market has witnessed remarkable growth over the past few decades due to technological developments, changing environmental regulations coupled with the changing consumer needs and preferences. The global EV market was valued at $118,864.5 million in 2017 and is projected to reach $567,299.8 million by 2025, which accounts for 22.3% CAGR growth from 2018-2025 (Kumar, 2019). The UK is on one of the countries that have been witnessing faster uptake of EVs with the market $ 2.4 billion in 2018 and are expected to reach $ 5.4 billion by 2024, marking 14% CAGR growth over the period (Techsci Technology, 2020). And with the UK planning to ban the sale of new diesel and gasoline cars by 2040, such a political development is expected to drive the growth of the UK EV market, and this makes it an attractive industry for automakers.
Description of and rationale for the new product (degree of innovativeness/ newness, radical/ incremental)
Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) is a UK automotive manufacturer founded in 2008 (JLR, 2020). The company is owned India’s automaker Tata Motors and is involved in the manufacture of high-end vehicles such as the popular Range Rover, land Rover and Jaguar car brands. Although JLR like other automakers have traditionally focused on developing diesel and gasoline-powered cars, the automaker has been refocusing its business model to developing electric vehicles to align its business model with the changing market condition and trends. Just recently, in February 2020, JLR announced a plan to launch Jaguar J-Pace electric SUV to the market by 2021 (Edelstein, 2020). The model which is still in the development stage is an example of radical innovation as it will mark a total shift from diesel and gasoline engines to pure EVs (Tidd & Bessant, 2018). The company has announced that J-Pace is expected to take on mid-size SUVs, such as Mercedes-Benz GLE-Class, BMW and Porsche Cayenne though J-Pace (Etherington, 2020).
Target market
Segmentation
Effective targeting begins with the segmentation of the market. Segmentation involves the process of dividing a large market into subgroups of consumers based on similarity of characteristics, needs and priorities (Sharma & Sharma, 2009). There are different bases for segmenting a market, namely demographic, geographic, psychographic and behavioural. As far as geographic segmentation is concerned, it will be an idea for JRL to target the urban Britons. This is important because the majority of charging stations for EV is currently available mainly in the UK’s cities such as London, Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool among others. Second, as far as demographic segmentation is concerned, because J-Pace is a luxury high end EV, the ideal demographic to focus on to ensure brand success is the high-income earners in the UK. Already, it has been estimated that J-Pace will retail for $65,000 upon its launch, a price tag which is only affordable to the high-income earners with sizeable disposable income (Car and Driver, 2020). JLR will also have to use psychographic based to divide its market for easy targeting. Psychographic segmentation involves dividing a market based on the interests, opinions, lifestyle, values and activities of a consumer. To succeed with J-Pace, eh ideal target consumers as far as psychographic segmentation is concerned would be the eco-conscious consumers. Eco-conscious is the consumers who are looking for cars that are environmentally friendly as J-Pace EVs will be very environmentally friendly. A study conducted in the UK found that 55% of the UK drivers are planning to switch to green cars in their next purchase (Bailey, 2018) as Britons become more eco-conscious a consumer trend that makes eco-conscious consumers the ideal target customer groups for J-Pace.
Lastly, the success of J-Pace in the UK will require that JLR uses the behavioural base to segment the market. Behavioural segmentation involves dividing a market based on factors, such as rates of usage, loyalty status, attitude towards products, benefits sought and product knowledge. In this respect, JLR should focus on affluent consumers who are looking for luxury and eco-friendly cars, benefits that will be gained by driving a J-Pace EV. Don't use plagiarised sources.Get your custom essay just from $11/page
Targeting
Targeting marks the second stage of the marketing process and involves picking the segment that promises the best business growth from all the segments. Philip and Lane (2013)) argue that the success of a brand begins with effective targeting. In the case of JLR, the ideal target customer group from the segments will be the urban high-income Britons looking for eco-friendly and luxurious cars.
Positioning
Ahn et al. (2012) mention that the way a product is positioned in the minds of the target customer influences the product performance in the market. Therefore, JLR must ensure that its J-Pace EV is appropriately positioned in the market to make it attractive to the target audience as this would ensure its success. J-Pace should be positioned as a high-end luxurious and eco-friendly car to make it appealing to British consumers.
Perceptual Map
Luxury
J-Pace
Eco-friendly (Low) Eco-friendly (High)
Luxury
Product/ customer value proposition
Value proposition refers to the benefits that consumers stand to gain by consuming a given product. Value proposition also denotes how a product or service solves a problem or improves the position of the consumer (Sharma & Sharma, 2009). JLR’s J-Pace SUV key value has to do with its eco-friendliness. The car will come as a hybrid plug-in based around the electrified powertrain. Accordingly, the fact that the car, unlike the current models, will not be powered by the highly polluting diesel and gasoline makes J-Pace one of the most environmentally friendly cars to be launched in the UK (Holloway, 2019). This means that acquiring J-Pace will deliver value to the customer by helping them lower their carbon footprint. The other value to be derived by customers to own this car has to do with better safety features (Berman, 2020). The model has electrified motor-driven rare wheels instead of the conventional mechanical all-wheel drive which provides many advantages, including improving the handling and during off-road work, as well as improves on-road handling, such as when navigating corners and poor surfaces (Holloway, 2019).
Communication plan:
SMART Objectives of the Communication Plan
- Sell at least 10,000 units of J-Pace SUVs to Britons by year 3
- Create awareness of the SUVs to at least 30% of the target customers in the UK in the first one year of the launch
Promotional Mix Strategies
Promotion is one of the marketing mix elements and which involves advertising and marketing a product to the targeted customers (Shimp, 2010). Because J-Pace is a new car model which is yet to be launched in the UK market, JLR will need to ensure that it invests in aggressive marketing and promotion to create awareness, make customers try the vehicle, as well as teach the customer about the new Jaguar EV brand. This will require using integrated marketing communication (IMC) strategy that combines both traditional and digital promotional mix channels as recommended hereunder.
Traditional Media
Television
Television is one of the traditional advertising media that will be ideal for use by JLR to advertise it’s yet to be launched J-Pace SUV. Shimp and Andrews (2012) note that TV advertising provides companies with a means with which to reach mass audience with a single ad spot. This means that JLR has a huge opportunity to reach mass audience across the UK by running a creative ad of J-Pace SUV. Currently, there are about 27 million British households with TV while every British spends about 3 hours each day watching TV. And studies show that 60% of consumers are more likely to buy a product after viewing an ad on TV. These suggests that JLR has a chance to not only create brand awareness to more than 27 million UK households with TV, but also drive up sales by running a creative ad (Statista, 2018). Some of the leading television channels in terms of viewership that JLR will have to consider advertising the new car include the BBC that commands about one-third of audience share, Channel 4 and ITV (Statista, 2018).
Newspapers
Newspapers are the other traditional media that will be suitable for use by JLR to advertise its J-Price to the UK audience. Percy (2014) argues that advertising a product on newspapers provides an effective way of reaching the audience because readers often look for ads in newspapers. Besides, Ang (2014) notes that readers tend to look for information about a product or brand on newspapers and this makes it a suitable media to engage the audience both intellectually and emotionally by using both texts and imaged of a product on the newspapers ads. Besides, studies have found that print newspapers have the highest rate of customer engagement than the internet, radio or billboards. Therefore, advertising in newspaper will be an ideal approach to reach British people with the J-Price SUV. The Guardian newspaper, for example records 5.2 million readers on its digital platform every week while the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph records approximately 4.1 million and 1.8 million readers on their digital platforms (Thorpe, 2019). Accordingly, this implies that JLR stands to reach several British people who are likely customers of its just to be launched J-Price SUV through newspaper ads. Figure 1 below shows the UK’s most popular newspapers by readership and which JLR will need to consider suing to advertise its J-Price SUV.
Source: Thorpe (2019)
Personal Selling
To drive the sales of the Jaguar EV to be launched in 2021, JLR will need to consider using personal selling as a communication tool to promote the car. Percy (2014) shows that personal selling is an effective tool for product promotion because it allows one-on-one interaction between the customer and a company’s salespersons. Therefore, using personal selling will be ideal for JLR in meaning its objective 1 as it will allow its salespersons to engage in a one-on-one dialogue with the customer and highlighting the features of the J-Pace SUV that would be most beneficial to the customer. As McAlister et al. (2016), personal selling gives the customer a chance to ask questions are receiving immediate answers regarding a product or service. Besides, the use of personal selling aligns with the IDIC framework that holds that interaction between a company and customers is necessary in building closer relationship with customers (Peppers and Rogers, 2004), which is critical to enabling JLR achieve its objective 1.
Digital Media
Social Media
Social media is a suitable digital advertising platform that JLR will need to invest to help build its brand and increased leads and brand following with respect to its J-Pace SUV product which is to be launched in 2021. According to Mangold and Faulds (2009) and Roberts and Candi (2014), social media has risen to become a useful media that provides brands with opportunity to reach a large pool of individuals who are interested in the services or products. As of 2019, the UK had 67% of its population having a social media profile which creates a great opportunity for JLR to use social media platforms, such as Facebook (79%), YouTube (79), Facebook Messenger (68%), WhatsApp (58%), Tweeter (47%) and Instagram (41%) to reach a wide population of the UK social media users (Figure 2) (Rose McGrory, 2019). These social media platforms will not only help JLR reach a large population in the UK, but also serve as a platform for engaging and building relationship with customers which is key to building trust and loyalty, which is critical to J-Pace SUV’s long-term product success.
Source: Rose McGrory (2019)
Schedule, timing and implementation
| Strategy | Action/Implementation | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 |
| Social Media | A video displacing the exciting features of J-Pace will be created, including a video of the vehicle being driven on the road. The video will be posted on JLR’s social media page, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. Friends and follower on these social media sites will be encouraged to tag their friend and share as many times as possible. The videos and pictures will be accompanied by texts describing the features of the car that a customer may need to know to create more excitement about the yet to be launched J-Pace SUV
| |||
| Newspapers | JLR create pictures and the descriptions highlighting the most important features of J-Page SUV that the customers consider beneficial. The company will then publish the ad on the UK’s most popular newspapers, such as the Daily Mail, the Guardian, Metro, The Sun and the Telegraph among others to reach a large audience | |||
| Strategy | Action | Month 1 | Month 2 | Month 3 |
| Television | A 25-second ad featuring the J-Pace SUV will be created. The video will begin by the vehicle being driven from the showroom to the road at different speed limits all the way to the charging station. The video will also display the vehicle being driven even in rough terrain while at the same time highlighting the internal features, such as the comfort that comes with driving this car, such as the seats, emission free and how long it last in a single charge to create more excitement about this EV SUV. | |||
| Personal Selling | JLR will higher highly skilled salespersons that will be deployed at every showroom. The salespersons will interact one-on-one with the customers by explaining to them the unique and exciting features of the J-Pace SUV that are most beneficial to the customer. This will include taking the customers through a short test drive to enable them get the feel of this EV to influence them to buy the car |
Evaluation and feedback (e.g. how will the outcomes be measured?)
| Action | KIP | Time-bound |
| Social media | · JLR will use engagement rate to determine if the social media is achieving its objective. The engagement rate will be determined at the number of likes received, the amount of shares as well as the number of comments that JLR social media page shall have recently after every one year for three years · The company will also rely on the amount of clicks brand mention, profile visits, traffic data and the number of active followers to determine the number of people who have been reached by any ad that the company shall have posted on its social media pages | 1 year |
| Newspaper | · For digital newspaper readers, the number of readers reached with JLR’s ad for J-Pace SUV will be determined by looking at the number of clicks on the ad, the comments left by readers, the length of time spent by each reader on the site and the number of inquiries received after reading an ad on the newspapers · For readers of printed newspaper, JLR will be able to determine the number of audience reached by the ad by relying on the number of newspapers sold by each of the newspaper companies each day | 2 months |
| Television | · Use the requests made on JLR’s search engine · The number of downloads that customers shall have made by potential customers as this will serve as a pointer to the number of potential customers who are interested in the J-Pace SUV | 2 months |
| Personal Selling | · JLR will be able to determine the performance of personal selling by measuring the number of J-Pace SUVs sold · JLR will also consider calling or emailing customers to seek the feedback directly from customers
| 3 months |
Sales Plan
Sales Channel Strategy
Company-owned Showrooms
Sales channel denotes the distribution strategy used by a company to make products reach the customer. Philip and Lane (2013) state that customers are interested in products that are easily accessible to them. The same applies to JLR that will have to ensure that its J-Pace SUVs are made easily accessible to the customer to encourage purchase. In the case of JLR, the company will have to consider using its company-owned showrooms as a sales channel for J-Pace electric vehicle planned for launch in 2020. Using company-owned showroom as a sales channel is essential for the success of J-Pace SUV as it will allow JLR to use highly trained and experienced sales team to deliver quality services to customers (Buil et al., 2013). This is critical because customer satisfaction is associated with repeat purchases and referrals which will help drive the sales of the EV once it is launched in 2020.
Dealerships
JLR will also have to continue using the dealership as it has always done as its sales channel. Currently, JLR has several dealers in London, Herefordshire, Manchester, Worcestershire, Liverpool, Birmingham and the West Midlands among others. The dealership is an appropriate sales channel for JLR because it will allow the automaker to expand quickly and at no extra cost to many locations in the UK; thus ensuring that customers are able to find the J-Pace car brand at their nearest place. Besides, as Sipho (2016) indicates, dealers normally have very knowledgeable and experienced engineers and salespersons to deliver quality services to customers’ thus helping improve the sales of J-Pace SUVs.
Sales Enablement Plan
Having highly skilled and competent sales staff is essential for brand or product services in a market. The skills and experience of the sales staff influence the quality of services delivered to customers and which also influences their satisfaction and willingness to remain brand loyal and use word-of-the-mouth to promote a brand (McAlister et al., 2016). To recruit the right sales staff, JLW will need to outsource its recruitment function to human resource and consultancy firms, such as Earnest & Young, KPMG or PwC to recruit the best salespersons to be deployed to help improve the sales of J-Pace SUVs. As Green Bean (2019) discovered, outsourcing recruitment has also been chosen because it will help save approximately 70% of agency spend and cut the cost per hire fees by up to 50%.
In order to equip with hired sales staff with the right skills to enable them to do their job to their best, the automaker will adopt a variety of training methods. First, all sales staff will be taken through a rigorous induction programme by assigning each recruit to a senior member of staff with sales experience to train them so that they can learn about the company’s work culture. The company will also organize seminars and workshops for its sales staff to train them so that they can acquire the right skills to do their job (Barrett, 2003). Additionally, occasionally, JLR will provide mentoring and coaching to its sales staff to enable them to develop the skills and competence required to deliver their best.
Sales revenue figures, pipeline and lead generation plan
Projected Revenue Figures
| Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | |
| Revenue (Units) | 5,000 | 7,500
| 11,250 |
Sales Pipeline and Lead Generation Plan
Sales pipeline plays a big role in product success or failure. A sales plan describes the steps taken by a company to turn a potential customer into a buying customer. Ang (2014) shows that companies that have effective sales pipeline plans perform better than their counterparts that do not have such a plan in place Percy (2008) says that a sales pipeline is essential for a company that hope to meet its sales targets. To achieve the revenue target of 10,000 cars by year 3, JLR will have to make periodic follow up with the leads to be able to land the sales. Making follow-ups will enable the company to understand what the potential customers need and how best to respond to their needs to turn them into purchases.
The company will also ensure that it keeps its sales cycle short of ensuring sales effectiveness. Studies show that it takes about 75% of all B2B sales about four months to close while 18% takes up to a month or longer to close. CSO Insight study found that 27% of sales representatives cite a long sales cycle as a significant barrier to sales effectiveness (CSO Insight, 2020). Therefore, to effectively manage the sales pipeline, JLR will have to keep its sales cycle as short as possible.
Source: CSO Insight (2020)
Lastly, JLR will have to consider using customer relationship management (CRM) for sale management. According to Ahn et al. (2012), CRM provides an effective means of managing sales pipelines. CRM management will allow the company to track both metrics, manage leads and enable the sales team to be able to access the right information quickly.
Conclusion
This report has outlined the main issues that need to be considered by Jaguar Land Rover as it prepares to commercialize its electric car for the Jaguar model J-Pace. The move to launch an EV has been informed as the government tightens policies on vehicles with the UK government having a plan to phase out all its diesel and gasoline cars by 2040. To succeed with the EV, JLR will have to target high-income earners and how are looking for eco-friendly cars. However, the success of the company will be influenced by its communication plan to help create awareness of the new EV brand. Based on the market analysis, it is suggested that JLR should consider using social media, television, personal selling and newspapers. It is also recommended that the automaker should ensure that an effective sales plan is put in place to ensure successful implementation of the plan. These would require using company-owned showrooms and dealerships for distribution of J-Pace. Additionally, the automaker will need to consider outsourcing its recruitment functions to HR agencies to help it hire the most qualified sales staff that will then be taken through training, including induction, seminars and workshops as well as mentoring and coaching.
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