Crafting a compelling

Brand Architecture for Passenger Vehicles

At Tata Motors

This case has been prepared by Tata Motors for TML Case study competitionMindRover. This case study is recommended for being used for the MindRover case study competition only and does not illustrate either correct or incorrect handling of an administrative situation. No part of this case can be used, reproduced or distributed in any manner without the approval of Tata Motors.

Diane checked herself in the mirror one last time and strode confidently for the doorway of the Conference Hall of the hotel. It had been long since she had caught up with her old friends and colleagues and the prospects of meeting them at the party tonight were exciting. Diane was a Mechanical Engineer and MBA in Sales and Marketing with a rich background in Marketing and Branding across various industries globally. After 20 dedicated years in this field, she decided to shift to a sector completely new to her: Automobile! Her recent movement to Tata Motors as Brand Head for the Passenger Vehicle Business Unit (PVBU) was with intent to focus her expertise and industry knowledge to help design a strategy to strengthen the brand of the PVBU products of Tata Motors. As Diane entered the Conference Hall, she looked around for familiar faces in the crowd. Having spotted a group of friends, she walked up to them. As the evening progressed, the discussion had steered towards automobiles and their features. One of Dianes friends, Priya, was looking to buy a new car and was looking for advice. Diane spotted the hidden opportunity in this situation to get sound-bytes from potential customers regarding products of Tata Motors. Diane: Priya, why dont you consider buying a Tata car. We have a wide range of products that you can choose from. Priya: Im not so sure. I feel Tata is better off producing trucks than cars. Tata cars are sturdy but I do not trust its durability. I also heard that they do not have a high resale value. The cars maybe value for money but I feel that all its products are very masculine and there isnt a model that would suit my personality. I might Just then they were interrupted by a call. Priya excused herself to attend to this call and Diane rejoined the rest of the group. Having pondered over Priyas response, she realized that the identity of Tata motors as a car maker was very weak. The rub-off from imagery of commercial vehicles had a fair share of unconstructive effect that affected the perceptions about Tata cars in a negative way. By the end of the event, apart from the happiness of meeting her friends and old colleagues, she had a strong agenda in place for her weekly review meeting with her team at PVBU. Every day since she joined, she had thought of the varied opportunities that Tata Motors had to reinvent itself as it continued to make footprints in increasing geographies. Tonights get-together made her realize even more the need to re-create and redefine the Brand Image of Tata Motors Cars and to act on this quickly, lest her goal of taking Tata Motors to a formidable No.2 position in the Passenger Vehicle market became harder to achieve! She wondered if she could help drive the transition from a value-for-money position into a more aspiration brand space. As soon as Diane reached home, she switched on her laptop and read a few articles related to Tata Motors and customer perception of its cars. She realized that although Tata is a name highly respected and admired, Tata Motors suffered from a plethora of perception based issues and she was curious to find out more. She came across an article on Brand Pyramid (Annexure 1) and what she read did not come as a complete surprise to her after the nights conversation with Priya. Diane figured she could not wait till the review meeting and drafted the following mail to her team members the same night-

Dear Team, Tata is a name known to all and close to everyones hearts because it touches their lives in some way or the other. We are South Asias largest automobile company, leaders in Commercial Vehicles and among the top three in Passenger Vehicles, but we still need to battle with a plethora of perception- based issues towards our Passenger Vehicles. Consumers look at TML as a commercial heavy duty vehicle maker and it has its share of negative implications and is best remembered for certain products, but not very clearly as a passenger vehicle maker. There exists no clear demarcation between the Commercial vehicles and Passenger cars. Despite our strengths (Annexure 2), competition owners do not have Tata Motors even in their broad consideration set because of the perceptions and resulting brand equity. While Tata Motors cars appeal to the consumer on grounds of economy/rationality/ pragmatism; the emotional aspects take a back seat. We garner weak loyalty and poor quality perceptions. Product brands are rather strong but our connect with the younger people and women is not up to the desired levels. As a team, we need to identify the reasons behind these. By improving our Customer Satisfaction Index (Annexure 3) and Sales Satisfaction Index (Annexure 4) will we be able to improve our overall standing or is the problem deeper than that? What about this brand can be leveraged to address emerging consumer needs? Tata Motors, as you all are aware, has many successful and high-profile brands like Safari, Manza, Vista etc in its portfolio today. However, there is not yet enough understanding of what Tata Motors as a brand stands for. Over time Tata Motors has had many faces. There is a need is to define the brand as a singular, powerful source that finds expression in its products; a singular idea that propels it to command an aspiration position in peoples minds. Given the central task is to arrive at a future-facing brand definition / position, the brand architecture will be developed once we have defined the Tata Motors brand. The brand architecture will aim to align existing product brands with the new master brand position. Some of the key building blocks will be: a) Going forward what consumer need will individual product brands address, given the overall master brand position. b) What aspect dimension of the TM brand will each of these bring to life and then reinforce the position of the TM brand. c) Articulating a clear role of each product brand in the company's portfolio. d) Brand architecture to develop a strategic view / brief - retail design, advertising, visual identity. e) How should the Passenger Vehicle division of Tata Motors position itself to create a stronger brand pull for its sub-brands? I look forward to a fruitful discussion around the same during our next weekly review meeting. I sincerely hope we can together design a 3-year roadmap to redesign the brand architecture of PVBU. Together we can! Regards, Diane

Annexure 1: Brand Pyramid (Milward Brown Methodology) A Brand Pyramid represents the overall relationship b/w consumers and a brand. The 5 levels indicate hurdles consumers have to get over before they move up the Pyramid and are finally bonded with a brand.

While we tend to talk about people moving up the BD pyramid, remember that they can also drop down it. Just as relationships can founder at each point, so consumers may find that a brand doesn't meet their needs, or perform the way we hope, or we may want to keep our options open and try others instead of committing.

Analysis of the above 4 graphs from Brand Equity study

The key concern is at Relevance for Tata Motors is perception o f Tata vehicles being too cheap to be of acceptable quality and lack of appeal. Tata cars are primarily not perceived to be stylish which impairs Performance. Tata cars are endorsed much below the category average on more stylish, would want to be seen driving, offering something different which limits Advantage. Price perceptions however are above category average. Likewise for Bonding as well. Bonding is limited on account of lack of stylishness, differentiation and want to be seen driving.

Annexure 2: Strengths of Tata Motors

(milestones can be found on the Tata Motors website www.tatamotors.com)

Annexure 3: Customer Service Index (CSI) (Source: JDP)

The J.D. Power Asia Pacific Customer Service Index StudyTM (CSI) provides the automotive industry with the most comprehensive information on the vehicle service and delivery process. The CSI Study is designed to provide vehicle manufacturers with an objective measure of customer satisfaction with dealers relative to other makes within the industry. Tata Motors CSI rankings over last 7 years have improved on year on year basis.

Annexure 4: Sales Satisfaction Index (SSI) (Source: JDP) The J.D. Power Asia Pacific - Sales Satisfaction Index StudySM (SSI) provides the automotive industry with the most comprehensive information on customers satisfaction on the vehicle sales and delivery process. The study measures customer satisfaction in the first 2 6 months of vehicle ownership and examines satisfaction with the pre-sales, sales, and delivery experiences. Tata Motors SSI is not very encouraging compared to the various players in the market.

Tata 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003

SSI Rankings 12 out of 12 11 out of 11 10 out of 10 11 out of 11 9 out of 10 9 out of 9 9 out of 9 11 out of 11 10 out of 12 10 out of 11

(*Anything in red is where Tata is ranked last)

Annexure 5: Indian Auto Industry- Passenger Cars Industry

(Graph 1: Passenger Vehicles market is growing substantially over years)

(Graph 2: We are No.3 today and amongst three players with a 2 digit market share in an Industry of 30 players)

(Graph 3: Tata Motors market share has been stable for Fiscal year 2013)

(Graph 4: There has been a loss of MS in Nov vs Oct 12 due to drop in Indigo and Manza)

(Graph 5: UV segment and MPV segment are the fastest growing segments. A2 segment is the largest segment followed by A3 and UV segment)

Annexure 6: Tata Motors- Volumes