MINI Countryman Meet the new edition to the MINI family, the all-new, four-door MINI Countryman
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Joe Lacy Jessica Lawrence Megan Smock Travis Wilson
Company
Competitors
The MINI Countryman is the most recent addition to the MINI car line (MINI USA). It’s the first within the family to have five doors. In 1994, MINI previously owned by British Motor Holdings, was acquired by BMW. When the Rover Group, which MINI was a part of, was broken up in 2000, BMW retained the MINI brand. Unlike most MINIs, the Countryman is not manufactured in Oxford, England, but in Austria. The model was announced in January of 2010. It was formally introduced to the public at the 2010 Geneva Motor Show.
The Countryman’s top competitors are the Nissan Rogue, Subaru Forester, Toyota RAV4, Volkswagen Golf 5-door hatchback, and the Volkswagen Tiguan (Car and Driver). These car models have a few things in common with the Countryman that make them competitors. First of all, they are all the crossover style of automobile; a mixture between a sedan and an SUV. Many of their specs are also the same. For instance, the starting price for the MINI Countryman FWD L4 is $21,650 compared to the Volkswagen Golf and the Subaru Forrester which are $19,755 and $21,695, respectively (Automotive). All of these cars offer four or five seats and have front leg room measurements within two inches of each other. The Rogue, the Forrester, the RAV4, and the Tiguan all offer fuel economy of between 22 and 24 MPG combined. The Volkswagen Golf is the Countryman’s closest competitor with 27 MPG, but the Countryman tops them all with a combined 31 MPG.
StrategIC ChalleNge
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Current Brand Positioning The current marketing for the MINI Countryman is not centrally focused on one main theme. It’s attempting to use different types of appeals in their advertisements which cause the ads to seem scattered. One of their attempts at marketing is associated with the slogan, “Getaway.” There are print ads as well as a music video entitled Getaway by Michelle Branch and Timbaland (Branch). This appeal leans towards the classy, yet versatile and fun aspects of the Countryman. Another side of their marketing attempts to take a comedic stance on the spacious aspect of the Countryman. Their commercial, “Cram It in the Boot,” which aired during the Super Bowl, clearly tries to play on the sexual innuendo aspect (Ad Blitz). Another print advertisement produced by MINI, has copy reading, “Loves to Plough,” which is separated from the rest of the copy that reads, “Through Traffic” (Rana). This represents another attempt at trying to appeal to the comedic side of a sexual innuendo. So far, the marketing position for the Countryman still seems undecided. In some cases, they want to be classy, in others fun. Sometimes they want to be funny and other times they want to be sexy.
Our Response We believe that the Countryman’s consumers need more insight into the product to convince them that the Countryman is a valuable addition to the MINI family. There are many skeptics who believe that MINI should stay within the brand image of small (Neil). We need to show them why bigger is better for the MINI brand. The marketing for the Countryman also needs to be more centralized. We need to focus their marketing attempts and keep it to one message.
Strategic Challenge
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target Market INSIght Our target audience is the young professional adult between the ages of 20 and 30 years old. Having grown up in the 1990s they possess an admiration for the retro-chic. They may be single, looking for a slightly larger car than the Cooper, or they could be newly married couples, possibly with young kids (“BMW Targets”). These people haven’t lost their youthful spirit though. They aren’t necessarily looking for the nicest, most luxurious things, but they do like to be flashy and are ahead of the curve when it comes to new products. Their purchases are extensions of themselves and thus make their purchasing decisions based on style and the “cool factor” attached to the product. Our target audience would be considered experiencers. They have a love for spending a large amount of their income on fashion, entertainment, and socializing and they place a high emphasis on looking good and having “cool” things. They are exciting people that seek variety cherishing the new, the risky, and the off-beat (“Strategic Business Insights”).
“They are exciting people that seek variety cherishing the new, the risky, and the off-beat.”
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We want to ignite consumer interest in the MINI Countryman. This can be measured by an increase in internet traffic to the MINI website, more specifically, the Countryman page. We would also like to see a higher physical presence of potential customers at the MINI dealerships as well as more test-drives for the Countryman. We believe that raising awareness and knowledge of the Countryman is the most important objective right now because it is a new product in an already fairly well known brand. This increased awareness and knowledge will eventually lead to more purchases of the MINI Countryman.
We want our consumers to think that the MINI Countryman is the coolest option in the fairly boring crossover segment of the automobile industry. We plan to advise our traget market to go to our Twitter page and follow us. This can be measured by trolling the automobile blogs and checking the internet and Twitter trends. All of these objectives will be conducive to our target market because the younger, retro-chic audience is internet savvy and they use digital and social media on a daily basis.
We need to convince our customers that the MINI Countryman is still a part of the MINI family and, although it is larger, doesn’t ruin the “small car” feel that the MINI Cooper originally set forth for the brand. We basically need them to feel that the Countryman doesn’t ruin the MINI image. Again, this can be measured by trolling the automobile blogs and checking the internet and Twitter trends.
MarketINg objeCtIveS
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the bIg Idea Introduce the Countryman as a new addition to the MINI family while improving upon the perception of the MINI brand image. We arrived at our idea when we noticed that many people had the opinion that the MINI Countryman didn’t fit in with the rest of the MINI brand. It was said to be too large to be included in the same family with the MINI Cooper. The idea of “family” became our main focus as we want to convince the public that the MINI Countryman is indeed in the MINI family. Our idea was mainly driven by the negative public opinion of the Countryman. The article by Dan Neil in the Wall Street Journal titled “What Part of MINI Did You Not Get, BMW?” is just one example of this negative image. The article describes how the Countryman is too large to be part of the MINI brand and by entering into the “small SUV” market it can’t compete with the other crossovers because consumers who want a crossover won’t go to MINI for one and MINI users don’t want a larger car.
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brINgINg the bIg Idea to lIfe To bring our Big Idea to life, we have come up with the theme of “Need a Big Brother.” Essentially, the Countryman is the Cooper’s older brother and in our campaign we will show the Countryman helping out the Cooper. This will ensure that the Countryman is seen as a member of the MINI family. We will achieve this campaign through print ads, TV commercials, outdoor, internet radio, and social media. Our main focus will be on our Twitter page where we encourage people to Tweet times when they needed or could have used a big brother. The goal is for them to trend #NeedABigBrother. We will also be posting humorous things on there to get and keep followers. These posts will be from the point of view of the Cooper and it will show SUVs being mean to the Cooper and having the Countryman save the day. Funny pictures will accompany these tweets as well and we will use these pictures as our print and outdoor ads as well. With regards to print, we decided that we will place our ads in Men and Women’s Health, GQ, Esquire, and Car and Driver magazines. We felt that these magazines effectively reach our target audience. We will be putting television spots on major TV stations such as ABC and NBC, but our main focus for these commercials will be on websites that allow you to stream episodes of TV shows such as Hulu. We feel that with our target audience being the 20 to 30 year old crowd, they are constantly using the internet for its wide variety of uses, including watching TV. The new MINI cars come equipped with Pandora capability in them. Because of this already existent partnership between MINI and Pandora, we will also have short radio spots that we will advertise on Pandora. We’re using this channel to help promote the new qualities of MINI vehicles as well as reaching our target through another internet source. All the channels are tied together through the use of newer media and the attempt to reach our target market through channels that they use frequently. Our message is consistent throughout the campaign because we are showing the familial relationship between the MINI Cooper and the Countryman.
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Because our main goal of this campaign is to change the public opinion of the MINI Countryman which will lead to more sales, we will measure our success in a number of different ways. First of all, we want to increase internet traffic to the MINI website and more specifically, the Countryman page. We can measure this by using Google Analytics.
Next, we think that we will create a large following on Twitter. We hope to have at least 10,000 followers to our page within the first 6 months.
Finally, we will troll the blogosphere and read people’s opinions on the Countryman. We hope that 7 out of 10 blogs that talk about the Countryman will be a positive review.
measuring success
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