Namesake or fake !

Ad By: Automobile companies

The name on the automobile shows its identity.

Automobile and Telecom are two industries that seem to never saturate, be it their brands, products, ranges, prices or be it their advertisements. Considering the size of respective target markets, automobile has less competition to match up the need and want of its customers as compared to the telecom sector.  Automobile sector has to tactfully handle its strategies to reach its market as it needs to invariably understand that the spending capacity of its target customers is way too dynamic with today’s economy. With such a changing and responsive environment, automobile has to be ready well in advance to reach the right target market at the right time.  To identify this right target, the market can be defined in specific manner based on certain parameters - demography, socio-economic parameter, geography to name a few. Once identified, automobile conceptualizes all the marketing strategies around the same.

The demography and socio-economic are such parameters that are indirectly reflected and communicated through the role plays in the advertisement, that are part of entire marketing. Geography is another parameter that is directly addressed and noticed in most of the automobile advertisements these days. When an automobile company designs its tv commercial, it displays the product and its features. While the product is shown, the camera shooting the commercial is unable to miss the number plate put on the vehicle (this also emphasizes that it is not allowed by law to drive a vehicle without its registration plate/number plate). Few companies choose to put the name of the model there and others put a number plate that shows the registration of the vehicle at a particular state. As seen in the advertisement of Ford Figo- Tamil Nadu (TN) registered car, Ikon & Fiesta- Delhi (DL), Maruti Swift- Karnataka (KA), Estilo- Uttar Pradesh (UP), SX4- DL, Honda Accord- Rajasthan (RJ), Jazz- Maharashtra (MH), VW Polo & Jetta- MH, Tata Nano & Indica- MH, Fiat Punto- MH. In a country with almost indefinite number of states, it is interesting to see how an automobile company decides on a particular state for its entire communication. There can be only three reasons to choose one amongst many- the company wants to reach customers in that particular state, the company manufacturing unit is present there or the company is headquartered there. In case, none of them is the reason for same, then it definitely leads to a sense of association or else a sense of apprehension for those who notice.  If there is no compulsion of putting a registration number there, the brand should undoubtedly try to avoid the same for not losing on an association that could have been otherwise possible.

The name (of the state through registration number) shown in the advertisement should be for sake of reaching its specific target market else it stays meaningless and somewhere come across as fake communication.

The name in the advertisement talks about the strategy.