Some time back, Shri RC Bhargava, chairman of Maruti Suzuki, made a statement that for the overall car market to grow sustainably, the entry segment needs to get back into action. As an industry observer, I totally agree with him. Today, the market is shaped like an egg. To be robust and sustainable, it needs to be the classic triangle.
But for entry-level car sales to get into action, the entry-level car needs to be in active consideration. And frankly, today, it’s clearly not. As a marketer, logic tells me that consideration has to be carefully built and not naturally expected. You cannot take it for granted. To enliven the entry-level segment, as a marketer, you need to create interest through activation, communication and engagement with the prospective buyer. This is critical, whether you are Maruti Suzuki, Tata, or Hyundai. And for a market like India, this is so crucial: compact, affordable and efficient are what small cars are all about, but it’s not cool, and that’s because no aspiration has been built around them.
Learn from two-wheeler marketers. One sees active communication by makers of entry-level products, whether it be the Honda Shine, the Activa, or the TVS Sport. Hero even had Alia Bhatt as the brand ambassador for their entry scooter, the Pleasure. They know that unless the right level of aspiration is created around these products, consideration will not happen. This used to be the case with carmakers too; they promoted their entry products – Renault actively used Ranbir Kapoor for the Kwid, but that was a decade ago.
Also, you cannot leave it to the network to advertise and communicate on your behalf, as most of that is about deals and discounts, doing no favour to the product brand or creating that desire and aspiration to own one.
As marketers and product planners, we need to reorient ourselves into having pride in our entry-level product portfolio and actively promote it through special editions, personalisation, social media chatter, unique activations and target-customer engagement. Make the entry-level car look smart and enticing once again. Build the right emotional connect. I still remember the 24-hour endurance test of the Alto in the early 2000s, which helped build a credible story of its robust build quality. Constant product excitement needs to be created to make the young Indian look at the entry level as the better choice.
In the rush to be seen as “premium”, the marketer might not find it cool to be seen communicating about and working on the ‘cheaper’ products. Please outgrow that mindset and realise that for the greater good of the market and your own higher-segment models, it is the entry-level car that needs its fair share of place in the sun. The sooner done, the better.