Toyota's Marketing Mix Analysis

In 1937, Toyota Motor Corporation was found internationally. The Japanese origin, global firm, is world’s major automobile maker in bulk. Toyota was originally known as ‘Toyoda’. This name came from the founder’ s name and he was an automatic loon manufacturer. They sell around 7.5 million models in a year, all over the world. Toyota’s values and principles have shaped the firm today (https://articles.marketrealist.com/, 2016).

Toyota Motor Corporation in 2008 was known for being the largest automobile manufacturer in the world. They have 600 subsidiary firms that operate in automobile manufacturing, spare parts and commercial and heavy vehicles. The Toyota city in East of Nagoya, Japan is Toyota’s headquarters. The current president is Akio Toyoda. Toyota has always contributed towards the society through their sustainability practises that have been incorporated by them in their business practices. They have worked towards improving the environment and protecting Earth. Toyota introduced their first car in 1957, in the USA. Toyota Motor Sales, USA and Inc., was born and their first headquarter was established. The Toyopet Crown sedans also known as Toyota Corona (redesigned version for Americans) and Land Cruiser were the vehicles that were sold in the USA in the beginning. Then they listed their company on various stock exchanges. Few competitors of Toyota in automobile industry are Honda Motor, General Motors and Ford motors. The brand Lexus are owned by Toyota and was used to give competition to luxury cars segments like BMW, Jaguar and Mercedes Benz (Brian Duignan, 2019).

Marketing mix and strategies of Toyota

Product/Position

Toyota has wide range of products. They earned their reputation in the market because of the automobile manufacturing. Besides, the automobiles that is Toyota and Lexus it also deals in automobile spare parts and accessories, automatic looms, Marine products, rubber manufacturing, steel, real estate and housing units, engines and motor sports. They also import and export raw materials across the globe. They also deal in WELCABS which are taxis designed for people who are older or are disable. The firm has their assembling plants and distributors across different countries. Toyota expanded in the automobile segment by targeting the luxury segment by introducing Lexus cars and sold first hybrid (fuel efficient car or green car). It is less harmful the environment Lexus car which gave competition to BMW, Jaguar and Mercedes Benz. Toyota using the product innovation as their product strategy where they work on new cars which are zero emission cars which are electrical cars and are charged using renewable energy sources, hybrid cars which have engines designed in a way which reduce CO2 and petrol costs, fuel efficiency of the current cars, automated mobility where they introduce concept cars and theses machines understand the driver’s emotion to function in partnership, build cooperative intelligent transport systems that are build to take care of the road safety and are currently working on fuel cell vehicles, that are the cars that will use hydrogen as fuel and will be emission free (Toyota Australia, 2019). Toyota keeps its customers interest on top due to which they have research centres to know what kind of products and quality is expected by people from Toyota. They have invested millions in in research development. Hence, they have worked on innovative range of cars.

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Pricing

Toyota deals in a wide product line and has all cars in different pricing category from budget friendly cars to luxury cars. They follow market-oriented pricing strategy that means that prices are decided based on the price of the competitors and the market conditions. Most of the products like sedans come under this strategy. It also uses value-based pricing which implies deciding the prices based on profit value and cost value of the cars. This strategy is used for expensive or high-end cars like Lexus. The selling price is determined by the customers. Also, the government policies like tax and duties impact the price. Their price range starts from AUD 15,390 approximately and goes till more than AUD 53,000 and for Lexus cars the prices are even higher. They use the TPS due to which they can provide their customers with best quality, low cost and shortest lead time by removing the waste at the same time. This is their competitive advantage as they invested in this long time ago (Toyota, 2019).

Place/Distribution

The customers have the tendency to impact the business if they don’t the reach to the products. Therefore, it is necessary for the firm to have their products ready at the right time and at the right place (Barcik and Jakubiec 2013). Toyota reaches its customers through their retail stores and dealerships. People can buy their cars at these stores or dealerships. The spare parts and accessories are sold at the retail stores as well. They rely on these two ways to reach their target market. Their teams is trained well to inform the customer about their products as well as finance insurance and any customer demands in any case. They reduce the supply chain costs and provide reasonable customer service to their customers with high quality products. They work in a systematic manner in their assembling plants they have different suppliers in first level where the product development is done then the second level or tier has different supplier who work on individual parts of the product and their staff helps the supplier in-case of over work load. They use B2C distribution strategy that is business to consumer for selling the products.

Promotion

Toyota not only sells using dealership and retail stores but have their staff trained where one on one sales takes the sales person speaks to its customers. In Japan they use to provide door to door service. They promote their sales using social media, advertising in news-papers, on you-tube, radio, TV commercials, bill-boards, collaborations with TV shows and sponsoring events as well as movies or TV series. They sometimes use celebrities to promote their cars. Also, the cash back offer or short-term sales promotional schemes that firm uses to sell their products. Toyota also promotes its products by using their Toyota Together Green program which is an initiative towards protecting the environment and other programme which is Meal Per Hour program where food is donated by their Food Banks. This results in creating a positive brand reputation in the market. They have wide range of promotional strategies. For their corporate clients they sell directly. They use above the line strategy as they are selling through their retail stores and have huge campaigns to promote their sale. They are also using below the line promoting strategy as they have a segment for car racing and are sponsoring a player and associate themselves to other programs.

Summing up, it should be said that Toyota has performed well in the past 25 years in terms of high sales and giving out market share. This resulted in a valuable and strong reputation of Toyota in the market.