Where, when and how a marketer displays products can attract or drive a potential consumer away. Choosing the most brilliant way therefore to display products for sale is actually imperative as it will draw the right customers for good price negotiation.
For instance, vehicles for sale displayed at high-end spots will definitely attract high-brow individuals who will negotiate good price for the product but autos for sale placed at obscure corners or low-end areas will likely attract artisans for low price.
At almost every corner in Lagos there are car for sales, but some vehicle merchants who understand the consumer and marketing strategy have carved a strategic niche for themselves with auto display at high end places such as hotels, event centers, showrooms and shopping malls for the high-brow individuals including Nigerians and foreigners who patronise such places. They do not only display cars at ambience and strategic places, they offer driving experience of such cars to potential buyers.
General Manager, Marketing and Corporate Services of Coscharis, Abiona Babarinde who assessed display of cars at convivial and welcoming places told BusinessDay that such tactics is to allow customers interact with the brands to enable their quick conviction of purchasing them.
His company recently entered into partnership with Oriental Hotels in Lekki for display of its premium car brands such as Jagua, Land Rover, Rolls- Royce, BMW, Mini Cupa, Morris Garages (MG) and Ford to the hotel customers. Babarinde said “positioning these brands is very critical, and we have to be strategic about it. It is also how we excite and identify our priority audience.
“At Oriental Hotels we are displaying our numerous brands and the purpose of the display at Oriental Hotels is to bring these brands closer to the consumers. The hotel hosts various people and it is where some top stakeholders lodge, hold their meetings and have their leisure time. It is a matter of bringing the cars to their comfort zone. It is like bringing our showrooms to where the consumers also stay. We believe this style of marketing will resonate with consumers. Apart from the MG that is on display, we also have the Rolls-Royce on display at the ballroom section. We know that Rolls-Royce is a brand not virtually for everybody so the exclusivity and the marketing at Oriental will also resonate with the premium Oriental customers”
Abiona further explained that the display will give a robust marketing positioning of these brands so that intending buyers can make inquiries. “The good thing is potential purchasers have opportunity of test drive which is a way to go in terms of giving the consumers the experience. It is not just about looking at the car but also experiencing it and allowing you make up your mind. This gives the consumer the opportunity to look and appreciate the features in the cars. This is a marketing strategy Coscharis is known for”, he said.
The partnership with Orientals, he said would last from August to January 2015 and the brand of the cars would be displayed in turns. He described the partnership with Oriental as a win-win arrangement “because as we are having an extension of our showroom to the Hotel it will also bring some of our customers that would have worked in to our showrooms to also patronise Oriental Hotels”.
Abiona who links the several brands that are attached to Coscharis to integrity and the company’s understanding of the consumer said the company’s after sales is also good to delight the customers. “Our after sales service in the country is second to none for our brands. We boast of after sales personnel and equipment. Currently we are running free-registration to create further value for those that shipped in their vehicles that did not buy directly from us but are carrying our brand”.
According to marketing experts, consumer understanding is important in any marketing plan.”Marketers have to probe deeper into the world of the consumer to understand their motivations, needs, aspirations, belief systems and other deeper values they hold dear and which could hold the key to the levers that when pulled could open the door to customer satisfaction and loyalty”. It has therefore become obvious that where, when and how a marketer displays his good is how the products pricing options are negotiated and how they are sold.
Daniel Obi
