A full scale campaign of branding and promotion of Tata Motors' products is in wait for the mass markets. Among these products, the Tata Bolt's promotion in English has upscaled limits for the mass market. Also, promotion of Truck racing as an event of the mass market product is being done. But the most significant question is whether these promotional measures are resulting in a satisfactory ROI. Creating awareness and advertisements are normally worthy and bear fruits if the brand's name is unheard of or is not popular among some section of the population. But the fact remains that there is not one person in India who hasn’t heard the word Tata atleast once in his/her life.
Although truck racing is not too popular in India, Tata Motors had taken an initiative last year to introduce it. The popularity of Truck Racing was expected to advertise it's premium Tata Prima Range Trucks. It still stays a fact that Tata is much more popular than these promotional measures and maybe a place like Europe could benefit with a proper ROI from all these methods but in a place like India where brand awareness already exists, it may have a detrimental effect. Trucks are not mass market products and hence the buying habits suffer a vast difference from the car market and other mass market products of the Automobile Industry. Competition from companies like Volvo, Mercedes, MAN, Scania, Mahindra, Ashok Leyland and Eicher could have put the Tata Prima at the head of the race but it is sadly competing with only the other products in it's product range.
Analyzing all steps of the two way branding, some conclusions were drawn as follows.
We start first with the Tata Truck T1 racing. Apart from the actual area of interest i.e., racing, there are also stalls that Tata Motors has placed in crowded areas like malls. In these stalls, one can experience a virtual feeling of being a part of the race. We also see that stalls like these don’t have any target audience. Nearly anybody from people who know nothing about truck racing and experts have been attracted by these stalls. Interesting as these stalls may be, no enthusiasm or curiosity exists among the audience to know the name of the truck or know anything about it's products. A measure like this would've greatly benefitted a company which did not have much brand awareness. But, everyone knows about Tata and such extensive measures taken to instil into the minds of the people their brand name goes a waste when it already exists.
Tata Motors has been forced to step down from the passenger vehicle segment throne as it has lost this segment. Not many great things has been seen either from the car segment. Stiff competition from manufacturers like BharatBenz, Ashok Leyland, Eicher, MAN, Scania, Volvo has stripped the company of off it's mass and premium vehicle segment. Tata's desperate need to stay in the competition has pushed it into advertisement awareness and promotional aids to showcase it's new Bolt. But this type of a strategy does not end up yielding the sufficient ROI in any segment.
Tata Bolt launch and promotion Strategy:
The curtains closing the Tata Bolt were open last year during the IIFA award function. It's not sure as to why Tata chose the IIFA award function to showcase the same but it was telecast in India with an underlying message that the company preferred to launch this car overseas rather than in India. Launching it overseas however would come at the cost of heightened expense and costly advertising. The actual launching took a long time with it taking atleast one year after it's showcasing at the IIFA awards to launch it in India.
It is of popular opinion that all that advertising and brand awareness did nothing but to deplete their financial resources unnecessarily. It was only faced with an unrequited response from the crowd. This does not aid the campaign in any way. There should not be more than a 10 day gap between the launching of a product and creating brand excitement. Also, at the time of launching during the teaser, there should be clearly defined information about the product and should also give the time the product is expected to launch. Further all this information should not come more than 10 days before the launch of the product as the less interested customer tends to forget. The information cannot come too close to the launch either as it does not give people time to understand about the service. The Tata Bolt started it's advertising much before it's launch owing to the results that were obtained.
