Introduction To Marketing For Honda Accord

Company and Product Background

Discuss about the Intoduction to Marketing for Honda Accord.

A customer buys services or products for his or her personal use. The behaviour of the consumer during buying particular products or availing a specific service is regarded as the buying behaviour. The buying behaviour also involves the act of people during buying and using of products. The buying behaviour of and individual includes the need of understanding the reasons for which the consumers make the purchase, the factors that influence the purchases made by the consumers along with the altering factors prevailing in the society.  It also refers to the process of buying and selecting the products and the satisfaction derived from the usage of the products (Ahn, Cho & Han, 2014).

The analysis of the buying behaviour has to be done by the organizations or companies so as to know the reaction of the buyers to the impact of the marketing strategy of the company in contributing to the success of the company. The success of the marketing mix is also enhanced by the analysis of the buying behaviour of the customer.

Honda Accord is a brand name in the world of cars that specializes in the four-wheel drive that is owned by the Japanese multinational manufacturer Honda. Presently, the Honda Accord is owned by Honda Motor Co. Ltd., which is a leading Brand. Honda Accord developed into an iconic brand that encompasses in to a range of four wheelers. Honda Accords are assembled in the plants situated in Tokyo (automobiles.honda.com, 2017).  The development and research of the Honda Accord are taking place at the Tokyo engineering centres. The cars of the Honda Accord were manufactured in the plants presented at various place all over the world. 

The concepts of the Honda Accord are the fort concept vehicle that later became very popular. The second concept of the Honda Accord is the Honda Accord LR version which had the ERAD technology (automobiles.honda.com, 2017). This car was launched as the Honda Accord in various models. This model happens to be the first Honda product to have front wheel drive without any low ratio transfer box.

The Sedan Honda Accord Sport is the model of concept vehicle that was designed to replace the Honda Accord Ex. On the other hand, the replacement of Honda Accord Ex will not be exactly like the Sedan Honda Accord Sport concept. The Discovery Vision Concept of the Honda Accord Touring is the fourth concept vehicle that was designed to replace the Honda Accord EX (automobiles.honda.com, 2017).

The Decision Making Process

Mark is an entrepreneur who has his own restaurant running in Melbourne. He is a Master in Business and graduated from the University of Melbourne. He has been a successful entrepreneur at the age of 30. Mark also had a bachelor of Business degree before he pursued the Master’s degree.  He is currently staying in Melbourne and aims at expanding his business globally. He decided to choose Honda Accord as his new car.

The second respondent for our case is Susan who is a wedding planner in Melbourne. At the age of 42, she has been one of the leading wedding planners in Australia. She completed her Bachelor in Technology degree in the computer science branch in the University of Sydney.

After the completion of the engineering degree, she was working in the Information Technology industry before she decided to make her own company where she could experiment with her creativity and passion in the wedding planning sector. She has been in the wedding planning industry for last 18 years and has gained the name, respect, and fame in the industry. After constant research and suggestions, she went on the decision to buy a Honda Accord.

The decision making is the process of making decision or choices regarding the identification of a decision, gathering information regarding the product and analyzing the alternative resolutions. Implementation of the steps of the decision-making facilitates in making a deliberate decision. The process of buying behaviour is very vital for the marketing decision of Honda Accord (Burns & Bush, 2013). The process of buying behaviour includes the stages that the consumer undergoes through before, during and post buying the product or service, i.e. Honda Accord in this case in the decision making process. The first stage of the buying behaviour and decision-making process includes the identification or recognition of the need of the consumers to buy the product. Mark and Susan could understand the issues or concern that they had in between the state of desired motivation and currently motivated state. 

Mark stated that he wanted a car that had a good reputation and brand name in the car industry. He also wanted a car that would have a convertible body style (Camerer & Yoon, 2015). On the other hand, Susan was looking for a vehicle that has the advanced technologies with an In-control Touch that would help her in gaining more control over the vehicle which influenced her to choose Honda Accord (Sheth & Sisodia, 2015). 

Purchasing Decision

Customers have to go through the stages of the decision-making process in buying the product. In regards to daily purchases, the consumers need to go through the research and evaluation of the information related to the products. However, in this case, the research and evaluation stage could not be ignored by Mark and Susan as purchasing a branded four-wheeler is not a daily purchase rather is a luxury purchase. Therefore, proper research and evaluating the information was done by Mark and Susan (Fill & Turnbull, 2016).

The purchasing of Honda Accord by Mark and Susan was limited by characteristics as the investment made is nominal and at the same time, they would make regular use of their cars. The time period of this limited decision making was completely dependent on the experience of the customers, i.e. Mark and Susan and their knowledge about Sedan Honda Accord as well as the amount of time they had taken to make the decision.  According to Gbadamosi, Bathgate & Nwankwo both Mark and Susan had made research online where they could gather all the information that was required for them by sitting at home and even while at work (Gbadamosi, Bathgate & Nwankwo, 2013).

Both these costumers had evaluated the alternatives along the process of evaluation which the alternatives to the customer’s evaluation was bound by the choice set by using the information (Weaver, 2014). Both of the customers had been using cars of other brands and were used to using the same cars again and again. They wanted to buy a car with advanced features and technology that would make their driving experience better. The purchase was high involvement in nature as the purchase was made of a branded product involving high expenses. Therefore, buying a Honda Accord is a high involvement purchase (Hair Jr & Lukas, 2014).

 The fourth stage relates to the purchase that Mark and Susan made after going through the internet in order to satisfy their needs. As per Ivanov, et al, the buying decision took place after some weeks of evaluation of the information. Both of them had to go through the test drive so as to gain assurance of their selection of the vehicle. The final stage includes the post-purchase evaluation of the cars that they both brought (Ivanov, et al., 2013). Both of them felt much more comfortable in driving Sedan Honda Accord. Both of them reviewed that the technology involved in the functioning of the car made the driving experience much more rewarding and outstanding (Weinstein, 2013).

According to McKenzie-Mohr, the process of perception, motivation, attitude and learning relates to the internal process of a psychological core that is involved in the decision-making process. The perception of the both the customers on being exposed to the external aspects of the vehicles caught their attention.  Attention and exposure make up only a part of the available information. On the other hand, learning from the experiences makes a long-term impact on the memory. It could be learned that there are two situations in learning such as low and high involvement learning (McKenzie-Mohr, 2013). 

The situation of high-involvement learning, in this case, was motivated by the process of learning by the experience of the customers while buying the vehicle.  It was found that the customers could experience the real specifications of the vehicle and the difference in driving other cars. The personal involvement in analyzing the features and gaining control of the vehicle through advanced technology made the difference and enhanced the driving experience of the customers (Proctor, 2014).

Conclusion:

The buying behaviour of the customers was discussed and analyzed in brief in the assignment. The stages of decision making were described with respect to the buying behaviour of the customers buying Honda Accord. The factors that influence the customers to buy the product were illustrated. It was observed that the external sources of information do not determine the satisfaction for the customers after buying the products.

The personal experience of the customers both before and after purchasing the product determines the satisfaction of the customers. Therefore, to obtain customer satisfaction, the buying behaviour and decision-making process have to be monitored by the organization for effective marketing and sales.

References

automobiles.honda.com 2017. [online] Available at: https://automobiles.honda.com/images/2016/accord-sedan/downloads/2016-accord-sedan-specifications-highlights.pdf [Accessed 11 Apr. 2017]. 

Ahn, K.H., Cho, J.W. and Han, S.L., 2014. Introduction to Marketing Channel Management. Paju: Hakhyunsa.

Burns, A.C. and Bush, R.F., 2013. Marketing research. Pearson Higher Ed.

Camerer, C. and Yoon, C., 2015. Introduction to the journal of marketing research special issue on neuroscience and marketing. Journal of Marketing Research, 52(4), pp.423-426.

Fill, C. and Turnbull, S., 2016. Marketing Communications. Pearson Higher Ed.

Gbadamosi, A., Bathgate, I. and Nwankwo, S. eds., 2013. Principles of Marketing: A Value-Based Approach. Palgrave Macmillan.

Hair Jr, J.F. and Lukas, B., 2014. Marketing research. McGraw-Hill Education Australia.

Ivanov, B., Parker, K.A., Sims, J.D. and Yoo, C.Y., 2013. The Impact of Message Sequencing in the New Product Introduction Process: Boosting Message Retention and its Impact on Product Attitude. Atlantic Marketing Journal, 2(2), p.2.

McKenzie-Mohr, D., 2013. Fostering sustainable behavior: An introduction to community-based social marketing. New society publishers.

Proctor, T., 2014. Strategic marketing: an introduction. Routledge.

Sheth, J.N. and Sisodia, R.S., 2015. Does marketing need reform?: Fresh perspectives on the future. Routledge.

Weaver, W.R., 2014. Effects of an experiential teaching method on introduction to marketing students’ understanding of marketing orientation: An exploratory study (Doctoral dissertation, Anderson University).

Weinstein, A., 2013. Handbook of Niche Marketing: Principles and Practice. Routledge.