Product Market Analysis Paper

New Business Analysis - Product Market Analysis xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx COM/100
December 9, 2013 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx New Business Analysis - Product Market Analysis There are many factors that come into play when a product fails in the marketplace. The same failures seem to be a pattern among product failures. Some of the signs that a product is failing or has failed are: total withdrawal of a product, lack of understanding of market share to keep its place in the marketplace; and inability to achieve profitability (Berry, n.d.). In every business, there is at least one product that the company had created that failed at some point or another. It may have been an unrecognized product, or just something that was not
marketed correctly, therefore never took off, but could have been very successful (Berry, n.d.). The product I chose for this assignment is a vehicle named the Cadillac Cimarron. This is a compact luxury car created by Cadillac in 1981, and was also deemed the most unsuccessful of the company as of today. It was built all the way up to 1988, until it was finally dismissed from Cadillac’s lineup. The advertising for the Cimarron was unsuccessful and did not target the right market. The company was trying to create a product that was compact, yet with the Cadillac name, and just did not attract very many people. When the car was first created, they expected to sell 75,000 of the vehicles, yet sold less than 26,000, which shows that the company overestimated their market size. Back in the 1980’s, there were less ways to advertise than there are now. In today’s society, and on the Internet world, there is actually better advertising for this product than there was when it was first created. The ways that this product was advertised was through television, radio, and newspaper. Even though the car was advertised in these arenas, it did not seem to make a difference because it was believed that Cadillac should not have changed their platform, and just stuck with what they did best, which are luxury vehicles and sedans. If this car were to be brought back onto the market, it would be very easy to market it to the right audience. With all of the technology today, it is not very difficult to spread a message and make it go viral, so to speak. Ways that Cadillac could advertise would be Craigslist, eBay, Amazon, and could make YouTube videos about the car. It could be manufactured in a way that was more appealing, such as a newer look that would attract younger drivers. Print is still a good way to advertise, but it seems as though the Internet has taken over when it comes to shopping for any type of product because you can get reviews from people who have bought the product, and have a way to balance the pros and cons of the product. Newspapers that are now online are a great place to advertise because many people read their news online now.
It is cheaper and does not cause as much waste, so it is becoming a more and more popular trend to read the news online rather than purchasing something you would later have to throw away. Television always is a great way to advertise, but it would be wise for the company to choose the correct channel to advertise on for the audience it is targeting. Another great way to advertise would be on radio programs that you can access through your cell phone or iPod. These radio stations, such as Pandora and Spotify; these applications will stop every few songs and play an advertisement for 30
seconds. A medium that I would use today would be Google and Facebook.
What is the first thing a person does when they are thinking about purchasing a vehicle? They will research it. And today, that research is mostly done on the Internet. By using Facebook, you can advertise to an array of people, and the people who like the product will tell all of their friends, and it is a word-of-mouth type advertising campaign. This has proven to be successful in many products, everything from face wash to vacuum cleaners. Another great avenue to use would be Google. By using Google, the company can create ads that will automatically pop up when certain keywords are typed into the search engine. This just entices the consumer to click on that site, and to at least review the product. If it is within the audience they are trying to reach, there will be much more success in selling their
product. Overall, using all of the methods mentioned above would have really helped in the success of the Cadillac Cimarron, but unfortunately, that type of networking was not around back in the 1980’s. Nowadays, it would be much easier to target the individuals that would want to purchase such a vehicle. As society is speeding into the technology future, everything is becoming easier to market, as long as what is said is targeted to the right audience.
References
http://www.mplans.com/articles/product-and-brand-failures-a-marketing-perspective/ http://www.carbuzz.com/news/2012/11/11/Rebadged-Disasters-Cadillac-Cimarron-7711547/ http://www.cadillacforums.com/cadillac-models/cadillac-cimarron.html