Case Study: The Smart Car

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The Smart Car 1. What is Smart’s competitive advantage? Brand promise? Positioning? According to Keegan and Green, competitive advantage exists when there is a match between a firm’s distinctive competencies and the factors critical for success within its industry (Keegan & Green, 2011). That said, Smart Car offers a cost focus and focused differentiation. Its brand image is very narrowly focused. Smart appeals to single people or families with no children who primarily do most of their driving in the city. Smart’s brand promise is to have the crash security of a Mercedes, emit no pollutants, and to achieve speeds of 80 miles an hour with a highly efficient miniaturize engine. All of this plus the ability to switch the panels for…show more content…
As noted in the case, Penske Automotive Group is no longer the distributor for Smart USA. How will this affect Smart’s fortunes in the United States? This will reduce Smart’s fortunes in the U.S. because Penske was had the sole distribution rights to Smart in the U.S. Now Smart must determine another mode of entry into the U.S. With the euro’s strength, as compared to the American dollar, and Smart’s returning to Mercedes-Benz, the cost of the vehicle would increase significantly as the new distributor must now re-factor their cost in both reproduction and market strategy. 5. Evaluate Smart USA’s social media strategy. What additional channels or tactics would you recommend? In using social media, Smart targeted young adults who were environmental conscious and who used social media and its technology. Smart was interested in attracting the young adults, who were on the move and flexible. They used the strategy of aesthetics to appeal to compare the typically large automobile as ‘dumb’ and theirs as ‘smart’. They could also have used country of origin and compared, German, since the Germans are known for making good automobile. Also co-marketing with Mercedes since Mercedes has a well-known reputation of quality, and

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