Eesti automüüjate turunduskommunikatsioon enne ja pärast majanduslanguse algust Eestis
Kuupäev
2009
Autorid
Ajakirja pealkiri
Ajakirja ISSN
Köite pealkiri
Kirjastaja
Tartu Ülikool
Abstrakt
Kirjeldus
The aim of Bachelor’s thesis „Estonian Car Dealers Marketing Communication Before and After the Beginning of Recession in Estonia” was to analyze, how Estonian car dealers’ marketing communication has changed over the period of economic recession. The author of the thesis believed, that the marketing communication had changed relevantly, in the field of channels used for marketing and in the field of messages sent to consumers. Also the author believed that the financial resources available to marketing divisions had not been decreased, but rather preserved at the same level, which was in the growth period.
The advertisements appearing in Postimees before the economic downturn and after were used to fulfill the research objectives. The time periods were second half of the year 2006 and the second half of the year 2008 respectively. Also, interviews with the leading car-dealers’ marketing executives were performed. The research methods used were content analysis, qualitative content analysis and interviews. The analysis unit that was used for the content analysis was one car advertisement. The essential categories were placement of advertisement in the paper (page number), size of the advertisement and principle marketing message, secondary marketing messages, specialness of the advertisement, product visualization, use of slogan, product price disclosure, coloring of the advertisement and the use of secondary objects or sceneries in the advertisement. There were 59 distinguished advertisements from the economic growth period and 62 from the downturn period. Those individuals being interviewed were the Marketing Executives or their representatives, which were working in one of the top 10 car dealers firms.
The goal of applying the content analysis was to get an overview of how the advertisements, and therefore in some proportion the marketing communication, had changed after the start of economic downturn. This overview was done by comparing advertisements from the economic growth period with the ones from the downturn period. The aim of the interviews was to get secondary opinions to the results found from the content analysis and also to give an opportunity to the marketing executive to represent his or hers opinions and views regarding the two periods and also the near-future statuses in that field.
The research results revealed that the marketing communication had changed noticeably after the start of economic downturn, focusing now more on price communication and on the observation of the competitive car dealers’ marketing campaigns. Also the types of messages communicated were consolidated, with the focus on the price being now more important than in the growth period. Likewise the diversity of the marketing messages declined in the downturn period and advertisements increasingly shared the similarity between them. Executives noted that somewhat significant change had been in the use of marketing channels too. With the decrease of print media (newspapers, magazines), more resources were invested in the televised advertisement. Despite the decrease of sales the marketing budgets were not cut according to the executives. By their words, the budgets were planned at the same level as before the downturn period. Nevertheless executives decreased marketing spending, because the results from the market were not as expected.
With the support of the results of the content analysis and interviews, it can be concluded, that main reason for the changes in marketing communication was the insufficient support by the loan-companies to the consumers. Therefore customers were unable to buy the product because of the high entry-point (deposit made when buying). Decreasing sales forced the marketing divisions now to communicate more strongly the price and the benefits gained when making a sale, thus hoping to sustain the sales levels. When revealed, that this strategy did not succeed as planned, the actions head in two directions, the first one being to cope with the changed, cut spending and hope to survive the recession and the second one being to sustain marketing levels, hoping to improve customer awareness and satisfaction, so when the new growth period arrives, the company can get its marketing investments back with a well proportioned revenue. The latter being the right decision, according to the empirical studies, which were presented in part 1.4.
Märksõnad
H Social Sciences (General), bakalaureusetööd, meedia, trükiajakirjandus, turunduskommunikatsioon, majanduslangus, majanduskriisid, autod, müümine, kaubamärgid, reklaam