Car Advertising Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Car Advertising - Assignment Example Considering the car market in UK, till 1980, the general opinion of Audi was that it was a car built in Europe and customers were not certain of even the nation of building, the technical capacities and the car had no specific image. The car was not clearly positioned according to the Louis Harris Car Image Study. The position of the car changed to some extent and by 1987, the car slowly moved towards the group of prestige cars. This was due to the "Vorsprung durch Technik" Campaign of the 1980s. Though the car was of the same size as Ford and Vauxhall, it was positioned as a car above them in terms of image. Further improvement was achieved in 1995 when Audi took advantage of the marketing opportunities that were available to it and to an extent this was due to the new models that were introduced. These were called Audi A8 and the Audi A4 and both these cars were far better that the previous models that this brand had. (Members only - how advertising helped Audi join the prestige ca r club) The models were liked by the press and the potential customers, and the particular brands have won a number of awards. This range of models was an improvement on the previous models that it had and those were called Audi 80 and Audi 100. Yet the brand had strong opponents in terms of brand names and prices. There were also new launches coming up from the competitors and the brand had not many advantages in terms of product itself. Thus, it was essential to establish the brand on certain parameters. The advantage of the brand getting into the prestige segment was that it would permit the brand to retain value after a few years of usage and this would encourage the users to buy the car. This can be seen in the case of Mercedes C class, Saab 900i, and Ford Mondeo 2.0 Si, where Mercedes retained 87.5 percent of the value, Saab retained 76 percent and Ford retained only 61 percent. Naturally, the car with the highest prestige would provide unseen advantages for its buyer and thus would f ind it easier to sell. (Members only - how advertising helped Audi join the prestige car club) The general positioning in Britain seems to be with Porsche and Ferrari as members of the Super Prestige group, BMW, Mercedes and Jaguar being members of the prestige group; Volvo and Saab being members of the quality cars group; Ford, Vauxhall, Rover and Renault being members of the mainstream cars group and Kia and Proton being members of the budget cars group. The cars in the prestige and super prestige group are able to charge a higher price, while the sales are the highest for the mainstream cars. In terms of positioning, it was always the objective of Audi to be a member of the prestige cars group. (Members only - how advertising helped Audi join the prestige car club) The logic for this is based on volume of production, desired profits and other matters. The consumers also view cars within different groups in a manner that keeps their image in line. The purchasing decision is then based on the cost of the cars and what the user can afford to pay. So far as prestige and super p restige cars are concerned, they charge a premium price and this has to be supported by their image. The positioning of a brand is

Social Psychology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Social Psychology - Essay Example This paper focuses on social psychology as a branch of psychology. As a branch of psychology, social psychology concerns itself with the understanding of individual’s mental behaviors, functions and processes within a social context (Vala and Costa-Lopes, 2012). Myers and his co-authors (2010) also define social psychology as the scientific field that aims at understanding the causes and nature of the behavior of an individual in social situations or contexts. Therefore, it looks at the behavior of an individual as influenced by the social context and other people around where this takes place. In other words, social psychology can be described as a discipline that employs scientific methods in understanding and explaining how the feeling, behavior, and thought of an individual are influenced by the implied, imagined, or actual presence of other people in a particular context, or different situations (Letitia, et al., 2005). While the discipline also relates with sociology by looking on group factors such as socio-economic class and race, it relates to psychology in the sense that it looks at these factors by focusing on an individual. The discipline focuses on a broad range of social topics such as social perception, non-verbal behavior, prejudice, conformity, leadership, aggression, and group behavior, among others (Funder and Krueger, 2004). Apart from looking at the social influences, this discipline also looks at the issues to do with social interaction and social perception, all of which are essential in understanding an individual’s behavior within a social context (Rogers, 2011). Like other disciplines, social psychology has developed over years to become an acceptable and scientific field of study and practice around the world. While the influences of social psychology can be traced to early centuries, it started to develop as a discipline in the wake of the twentieth century (Vala and Costa-Lopes, 2012). The earliest influences of this d iscipline came from such philosophers as Aristotle and Plato. Aristotle held the belief that human beings are naturally sociable creatures, a feature that allows them to live together. His view was considered as an individual-centered approach because it considers an individual essential in a social context. On his part, Plato believed that the state was critical in controlling individuals and encouraging social responsibility through social situations and contexts. Plato’s view came to be known as the socio-centered approach (Letitia et al, 2005). In the 1800s, there was the introduction of social psychology concepts such as social facilitation and social loafing. This discipline developed further at the dawn of the twentieth century when texts in the field started to emerge, the most notable text being â€Å"An Introduction to Social Psychology,† which McDougall wrote in 1908. The writing of texts in the field in subsequent years greatly contributed to the developmen t of this discipline (Myers, et al., 2010). The period after the Second World War is credited for the substantial development of social psychology and research in social psychology. The horrors of the war led several researchers to develop interest in researching various social psychology topics such as conformity and social influence (Vala and Costa-Lopes, 2012). Some of the research focused on how individual behaviors and attitudes are shaped by social context, how they are formed, and how they can be measured in order to ascertain if change