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International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research Vol.2 Issue 2, February 2012, ISSN 2231 5780
WHETHER MOBILE MARKETING INCREASES THE BRAND VALUE OF A CAR

MS.R.SUGANYA*; MRS.S.SHANKARI**
*Faculty Member , R L Institute of Management Studies, Madurai,Tamilnadu. **Faculty Member, R L Institute of Management Studies, Madurai,Tamilnadu.
ABSTRACT Direct and sales representative communication in Marketing are beyond Companys brand communication budget, perhaps One should invest in Mobile marketing because its quick, direct, and affordable a fast response .Furthermore, to target a small group ,companies should go for less cost of communication mode . Read on .. ______________________________________________________________________________ 1.INTRODUCTION Technological innovations have changed for the better lives because of the introduction of various technologies. The first revolution was brought in by the computers and now, the mobile phones and the mobile based applications are all set to make a major impact on our lives. Although the economic slowdown is doing its best to retard auto sales, tech savvy auto dealers are turning to mobile marketing and mobile advertising to liven things up a bit. As the consumers always have their cell phones handy, they are always within the auto dealers' reach to receive their text promotion. 1.1 BRAND A brand is the symbol, logo, design, or the name that is the unique identity of a particular product or service and differentiates it from the competitors offerings. Intense promotional and marketing effort over time is required to build and establish a brand. Strong brands require strong positioning platform. The paper examines the management of brands.
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1.2BRAND VALUE The brand Value also known as Brand Equity. BRAND AWARENESS - Brand awareness is the degree of familiarity that the consumers have with the brand. BRAND IDENTITY - Brand identity is the associations that the consumers have with the brand. PERCEIVED QUALITY- Perceived quality is the degree of quality as seen by the consumers in the brand. BRAND LOYALTY- Brand loyalty is the degree of repeat value that the brand has. 2.MOBILE MARKETING As per the chambers English dictionary , the word Mobilemeansable to move about. Philip Kotler defines Marketing as a Social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want though creating and exchanging products and value with others . Marketing Management is the process of Planning and executing the conception, pricing , promotion and distribution of goods ,services , and ideas to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational goals . (American Marketing Association ) With this definition is defined in the following ways: Mobile Marketing Association (2009) defines mobile marketing as Mobile Marketing is a set of practices that enables organizations to communicate and engage with their audience in an interactive and relevant manner through any mobile device or network. 2.1TYPES & KEY TOOLS Some of the methods that are used in Mobile marketing are: SMS (SHORT MESSAGE SERVICE ) : This is generally referred to as a text message that can be sent from person to person (P2P) ; from person to Application (P2A) , as in a voting application in a television realty show etc., or application to person, usually tagged with an acknowledgement or information (A2P) PSMS (PREMIUM SMS): Here the service user is not charged for individual message, has to pay an incremental fee. This is effective in participating in a programme , purchase of a ring tone , caller tune or wallpaper and others that the service offers. WAP: Is an abbreviation of wireless application protocol . WAP is the Wireless connection to the Web. Access of internet on your mobile device is possible via a WAP session.
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MMS (MULTIMEDIA MESSAGING SERVICE): Picture, Video, audio can be taken using mobile phone and can be sent to friends or email. This is enabled by MMS or Multimedia messaging Service. MOBILE VIDEO: Wherein the gadgets are fitted with a cameras for Video and Photography. It is possible to Watch TV, music videos and commercials on the Mobile device, MOBILE ADVERTISING: Is much akin to the initiatives of internet or TV advertising ,this is a facility to intimate ,call to action or very simple present a brand banner using any of the above mentioned mobile applications-WAP,SMS,MMS. 2.2CHARACTERISTICS OF MOBILE MARKETING Mobile marketing is no less than an exotic marketing solution . It has become a core channel for the marketers .According to a report published by first Partner Ltd.,(a Research and Marketing firm ) , the term Mobile marketing refers to a broad range of formats in which target audience interacts with the campaign launched by a company with the help of their mobile phones .According to this report,mobile marketing has the following four types of broad formats: 1. MESSAGING BASED: Mobile marketing is based on SMS and MMS (Multimedia Messaging ). 2.BROWSER BASED : In this case the marketing is done with the help of internet on mobile for advertisements. 3.VOICE BASED : Here the voice mail is used being supplemented with the messaging . 4.LOCATION BASED : Some of the companies are using this as a convenient way of reaching the customer on a one-to-one basis .
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2.3 THE 4 PS OF THE MOBILE MARKETING MIX FOR BRAND VALUE PERSONALIZATION: It is here referred customization of Products and services .eg: Enhance customer loyalty , Generating more sales , Launching a product , Building Brand Awareness . PARTICIPATION : This is to allow the customer to participate in what the brand should stand for ; what should be the product directions and even which ads to run .e.g.: Branding/positioning , Customer Research . PEERTO-PEER : This refers to customer networks and communities where advocacy happens .The historical problem with marketing is that it is interruptive in nature ,trying to impose a brand on the customer .P2P is now being referred as social computing and is likely to be the most disruptive force in the future of Marketing .e.g.: Creating a Viral Element ,Generating Hype. PREDICTIVE MODELING: This refers to algorithms that are being successfully applied in marketing problems. e.g.: Reaching the Right People. 3. IMPACT OF MOBILE MARKETING ON CAR SALES When it comes to the auto industry, mobile marketing is playing a tremendous role in its resurgence. In fact, some of the best success stories in mobile have come in the auto industry. Advanced Mobile Solutions Cars2Go product is one such example. With Cars2Go, an auto dealers entire inventory is search-enabled and available on the convenience of the mobile phone. When you consider that 23% of all auto shoppers use the mobile phone during the car buying process, it is apparent that auto dealers, dealer groups, and OEMs need to embrace mobile marketing. Auto dealers do a lot of advertising. And, adding an interactive text message promotion to that advertising is a great way to build a database of prospects for the auto dealership. Once a prospect participates in an interactive text message promotion, he or she has supplied a viable opt-in and can be contacted in the future when you have sales or special events. 3.1MOBILE MARKETING & SMS TEXT MESSAGING SOFTWARE FOR CAR DEALERSHIPS Text message marketing for auto dealers enhances its staid advertising, especially newspaper advertising, and helps it come alive with interactivity. Mobile helps overcome the din of advertising in the crowded auto advertising space to make auto dealer stand out from the rest.With Club Texting, Car Dealerships can reach out to clients directly to keep them involved in your brand. Whether targeting a potential buyer or an existing client, Club Texting will enhance customer relationships to a more personal level via text messaging. By using Club Texting, they can generate leads according to specific car models and reach out to potential buyers about great deals and availabilities using SMS messages. The
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dealerships can also send messages to existing clients about discounts on products and services, routine maintenance, and the newest released models 3.2BUILD BRAND LOYALTY Mobile Marketing solution not only provides your customers convenient, on-demand access to inventory 24/7/365, but also gives you: A fully branded site on 100% of phones. More sales and service opportunities through new outbound campaign opportunities. Mobile codes like text WMX to 274447 to track spending and monitor leads from traditional advertising. The ability to create custom landing pages to reach every target. Strong lead management tools, including instant alerts and customer relationship management (CRM) integration. 3.3BENEFITS OF MOBILE MARKETING TO AUTO DEALERS Mobile advertising such as text message sweepstakes, text message voting, premium SMS, bulk SMS, etc. puts a dealer's brand in the hands of their potential consumers. Research shows that over 90% of consumers that get text messages read them. A simple SMS or bulk SMS help auto dealers get into a one-to-one relationship with the consumer. No other form of advertising receives a response as high as mobile marketing. A recent study has indicated that the response to mobile advertising is as high as 50%. Mobile advertising can be tracked very easily and therefore, allows auto dealers to evaluate results and check return on investment for every advertising promotion. Mobile advertising is a perfect solution for: Recording the phone numbers of consumers for future promotions
Promoting new dealership campaigns Real-time response to gauge the effectiveness of promotions Targeting the younger generation Building a database for future campaigns Advertising additional services Increasing the overall sales of cars, and service return.
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3.3 BENEFITS OF MOBILE ADVERTISING TO CONSUMERS With mobile advertising, consumers can reply to the advertisement the moment they see it. Consumers sign up for a particular auto dealer's program because they want to receive their promotion They can get information on the vehicles even after the working hours of the dealership and also on weekends and Sundays when the dealership is not open. It's very convenient for the consumers as they do not have to cut out coupons from the newspaper. To redeem the offer, they just need to show the message to the dealer or provide the short code that the dealership included in his promotion. Consumers can get access to used as well as new vehicle listings, complete with the vehicle pictures, rates, and vehicle condition report. By entering a keyword and a short code, consumers can get complete information about the dealership contact details and directions to the showroom. The present economic slowdown is the perfect opportunity for mobile marketing to shine, and indeed mobile marketing is driving the car sales for auto dealers. 4. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 4.1 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM: The penetration of Mobile phone and increase in the number of mobile phone subscribes had made it possible for the marketers to apply mobile technologies in marketing .Consumer acceptance of mobile marketing is one of the major challenges in mobile marketing .This is because, the mobile phone is a personalized medium for communication where they are reluctant towards receiving message related to marketing. Due to competition, car dealers have taken initiatives by adopting technology to improve their services to the customers in achieving lower turnaround time for customers servicing, complaint redressal and customer education. With this background, a study is going to be carried out to analyse the scope of Mobile phone in increasing the brand value of the car. 4.2 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY The primary objective of this research study is to gain an insight into the perception of mobile users, towards mobile advertising and their utility value in terms of impact on the purchase decision of car and maintain brand value. Hence we are attempting to explore consumers responsiveness to mobile marketing, taking into cognizance the impact of demographic factors like age, gender, occupation, etc. From the marketers perspective it is crucial to know the utility of mobile advertising, as far as having an impact on purchase decision of a customer is concerned.
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4.3 LITERATURE REVIEW A study done by Sanjit Kumar Roy (2009) showed that mobile channels are perceived to be more personal than traditional and e mail channels. This creates high expectations for the relevance of marketing communication messages. A consumer expects messages to be personal and of high interest and this makes the disappointment greater when they get undesired messages. Mobile advertising may even step over the line of discretion and invade consumers privacy because of the personal nature of the mobile device. Sumathi Shivkumar (2008) discusses how negative reactions like irritation arise through intrusion advertising. 4.4 METHODOLOGY Research Design Sample size Sampling type Tools used Descriptive type 50 Purposive or convenience sampling. Percentage, pie chart, bar chart, rank correlation, K-S test, Chi-square test, tables etc.,
An attempt has been made to keep the sample fairly representative across the demographic variables by constructing convenience sampling according to these factors e.g. age, gender, occupation, and level and purpose of mobile usage. Almost 54% of the respondents belonged to the age group of 25 to 35 years and 30% of the respondents were professional, 27% were in business, 14% were government employee and 29% were in Private Employee. 88.7% were males and 12.3% were females. Almost 85% of the respondents rated their usage of mobile in the range of medium to high income. 75% of the respondents used their mobiles primarily for personal communication. The area of our sampling is the city of Madurai. The time frame of the study was October 2010 to December 2010. Primary- stage sampling units were the mobile users opinion for car sales, while the secondary stage sampling units were Car dealers view on mobile phone effect on sales.
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4.5 DATA ANALYSIS & INTERPREATION 1. PERCENTAGE ANALYSIS FIGURE 1&2 : The chart shows Mobile marketing choice heavily influenced on the basis of respondents employment and age .
Age group
Source: primary data FIGURE3: IT SHOWS THAT EDUCATION GREAT IMPACT ON MOBILE MARKETING
It shows that education great impact on Mobile Marketing.
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Source: primary data FIGURE4: THE CHART SHOWS THAT 66% OF THE RESPONDENTS SAID THAT THEY WERE SATISFIED WITH SMS MARKETING, BECAUSE OF CONVENIENCE AND RECORD FOR FUTURE USE
4.2. CHI-SQUARE TEST Null Hypothesis: There is significant impact of educational level in Usage level of Mobile Marketing among the respondents. TABLE NO: A) RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EDUCATIONAL LEVEL AND USAGE OF MOBILE MARKETING OF THE RESPONDENTS Category PG UG Schooling/Diploma Uneducated Total Source-primary data Usage 9 18 5 0 32 No Usage 2 10 4 2 18 Total 11
28 9 2 50
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Here the calculated value of 6.05 is less than the tabulated value of 7.815 and the null hypothesis is accepted. Hence, there is significant impact of educational level in Usage of Mobile Marketing among the respondents. 4.3.KOLMOGOROV SMIRNOV ONE SAMPLE TEST NULL HYPOTHESIS Ho: There is no difference in the consumer brand awareness of car sales after the implementation of Mobile Marketing. ALTERNATIVE HYPOTHESIS H1: There is difference in the consumer brand awareness of car sales after the implementation of Mobile Marketing.
Source: primary data
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From table 2.1 one finds that the largest absolute differences are darken ,which is known as the Kolomogorov-smrinov D value .As sample size is 50,the table value=1.36/ =0.192 .Here the calculated D value exceeds the critical value of 0.192.Hence the null hypothesis reject . So, there is a significant difference in the consumer awareness of car sales after the implementation of Mobile Marketing among the respondent. 5.1 FINDINGS Many companies are still underestimating the attentiveness of consumers for mobile marketing. Mobile marketing usage greatly influences by education and age of respondents, 55% of all surveyed consumers was able to remember the name of the company contacting them after the execution of a mobile marketing campaign. Consumers are particularly interested in availability and special discounts. 32.6% of all consumers think of companies as "forward oriented" that are using mobile marketing.26.3% associate them with being "innovative".80% of the respondents agree that mobile marketing increase CRM & Kolomogorov-smrinov shows mobile marketing increase brand value of car. Companies and experts agree on the potential of mobile marketing with certain limitations. The areas of getting attention, brand popularity and client attachment are considered most promising. 5.2 SUGGESTIONS Companies generally desire more information in the areas of acceptance within target groups and avoiding spam in Mobile Marketing. So far marketers are allocating only 5% of their budgets into mobile marketing , because of demand the Company should increase the proportion ( This number is clearly bound to grow in the future).Mobile phones are becoming more important as "response channel" for TV or banner campaigns due to this the car manufacture can arrange some promotional program through Mobile . Mobile marketing is being established as successful interactive marketing channel, to increase car sales and CRM. "Mobile viral marketing" (word of mouth) has the potential to become a very successful branch of viral marketing: Mobile users don't depend on Internet access via Cable, DSL or Wlan. They usually carry their devices with them and are "always on". Auto dealers do a lot of advertising. And, adding an interactive text message promotion to that advertising is a great way to build a database of prospects for the auto dealership. Once a prospect participates in an interactive text message promotion, he or she has supplied a viable opt-in and can be contacted in the future when Company have sales or special events. 5.3 CONCLUSION Automotive marketers are also not new to mobile marketing. Brands like Chevrolet, Ford, Jeep, Jaguar and Toyota are all investing in mobile-marketing strategies to create awareness, drive leads to dealers and/or enable in-your-pocket exploration and interaction with Company products. SMS campaigns that include click2call, which enables consumers to call a dealer immediately, or click2locate, which asks consumers to enter their ZIP code to locate the closest
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dealer, are meeting with solid success for lead-gen purposes. Mobile marketing is not the activity initiated by auto marketers; it is the growing use of mobile marketing by auto dealerships. Dealers are looking for more efficient and streamlined ways to communicate with prospects and improve the sales experience, Brand value and mobile holds promise, particularly for younger audiences. REFERENCES Mobile Marketing: Achieving Competitive Advantage through Wireless technology by Alex Michael and Ben Salter, Butterworth Heinemann Publication, 2006. Airwide Backs Messaging Blog Mobile Marketing Magazine .May23,2006 Jayaram Anoop and Rajawat Yatish K., On the Go, Business World, October 29th 2007, page3. www.articlesbase.com www.datacommresearch.com
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ZENITH

WHETHER MOBILE MARKETING INCREASES THE BRAND VALUE OF A CAR

It shows that education great impact on Mobile Marketing.

Source: primary data

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