NEW DELHI: Tata Motors is planning to make its mark in the passenger vehicle segment with an aggressive drive to recruit younger buyers, a leading executive has said.
Mayank Pareek, the newly-appointed president of the company's passenger vehicle business, outlined the need for a new strategy to the Economic Times, as almost half the country's population was born after 1990. They had a different ethos to an older generation and did not necessarily retain that group's goodwill towards the brand as "they have not seen what Tata Motors is".
He has accelerated product development, with two products a year aimed at the younger market, "with extremely exciting design cues, high on performance and continuity with connectivity".
With the products in place, Pareek is now focused on starting "a big youth connect programme … to catch the pulse of the youth."
To this end he envisages "[going] to all the places where these 20-25, 25-30 kids are: corporate campuses, Tidal Park at Gurgaon, IT parks in Pune."
And as well as being physically present, "we want to be big on social media … engage them in conversation as we go along, do crowd sourcing, pick their brains, make them partner in your growth".
In the future he thought he could also "take on some of these kids as our brand ambassadors".
Targeting youth forms part of Pareek's wider marketing approach, which he explained was based around segmented marketing. Because of the diverse nature of the country, he argued that marketers too often took a scattergun approach when in fact "sniper fire works very well ... but the trick is to identify the right target".
The other major strand is to expand the number of dealerships. "A customer won't travel 100km to buy a car from you," he pointed out. "You have to be close to the customer. When you are close, you also understand their requirements better and it helps you to serve them better."
Mayank Pareek, the newly-appointed president of the company's passenger vehicle business, outlined the need for a new strategy to the Economic Times, as almost half the country's population was born after 1990. They had a different ethos to an older generation and did not necessarily retain that group's goodwill towards the brand as "they have not seen what Tata Motors is".
He has accelerated product development, with two products a year aimed at the younger market, "with extremely exciting design cues, high on performance and continuity with connectivity".
With the products in place, Pareek is now focused on starting "a big youth connect programme … to catch the pulse of the youth."
To this end he envisages "[going] to all the places where these 20-25, 25-30 kids are: corporate campuses, Tidal Park at Gurgaon, IT parks in Pune."
And as well as being physically present, "we want to be big on social media … engage them in conversation as we go along, do crowd sourcing, pick their brains, make them partner in your growth".
In the future he thought he could also "take on some of these kids as our brand ambassadors".
Targeting youth forms part of Pareek's wider marketing approach, which he explained was based around segmented marketing. Because of the diverse nature of the country, he argued that marketers too often took a scattergun approach when in fact "sniper fire works very well ... but the trick is to identify the right target".
The other major strand is to expand the number of dealerships. "A customer won't travel 100km to buy a car from you," he pointed out. "You have to be close to the customer. When you are close, you also understand their requirements better and it helps you to serve them better."
Data sourced from Economic Times; additional content by Warc staff
