[MUSIC] Hi, I would like today to do a brief introduction to the Nissan Leaf in Germany case. The case was developed in 2012, and explains the situation that Nissan was facing when deciding to launch its all new full-electric Nissan Leaf model in the German market. The case basically explains how Nissan has decided to launch in that market and establish a sales objective which is selling 2,000 units of the car in year one of the introduction. Which it seems to be quite an ambitious target even when the whole market, the whole German market, forecast is around 3, 4 million cars. It's a huge market. Selling 2,000 units of the Nissan Leaf because it's full-electric, in 2012, is actually quite challenging. So, basically the objective is putting together a marketing plan through the introduction. With these two constraints. One, the objective is defined, selling 2,000 units of the car. And the budget, the marketing budget that you're given, is also decided, and it's 2.5 million Euros. Which again, is quite an ambitious target, and it's also quite a good budget considering in terms of Euros of marketing per unit. So you're given basically quite a good description of the German market, so the car market in Germany. How this market is very much defined off the preference of the Germans to buy German. Okay, so German brands are actually the ones that are leading the market. Nissan is a Japanese brand, and the Leaf is of course very new, and it's actually a radical innovation for this market. So you're going to be giving information about the market, a lot of information about the customers. So a very sophisticated segmentation, defining segments of customers in terms of use of the car, in terms of being users, non-users, of the Nissan Leaf, or the Nissan brand, sorry. Also, sophisticated in terms of defining segments by lifestyle, by behavior. So quite a detailed segmentation for you to define the type of segment that you want to pursue. So the group of individuals, the segment of individuals, that you think will be more willing to buy these all new car. Remember, we're trying to find 2,000 individuals, or at least 2,000 units that we want to sell in that market. We also have to define the positioning in the marketing strategy, and for that you're also giving a lot of information about, what are the elements of differentiation that this car has? It's green, it's ecological, it is zero emissions, it is convenient, it could be economical. So many things that you can consider in terms of identifying elements of differentiation and later defining the position. Once you have the marketing strategy clear, the target segment, and the positioning, you should go to define the marketing mix. The product is a given, it's the car that we have. But in terms of product you might decide whether you're going to propose to design selling car, so car plus battery all together, like in a conventional car. Or actually splitting, detaching the battery from the car, and actually selling the car and leasing the battery, which is one of the options that Nissan was considering and actually was described in the case. So that will be one decision that you have to make. Second is pricing, okay? So, they're thinking about pricing in the region of 30,000 Euros. But depending on the, actually the subsidies that come in from the government, the price could be one or another. And of course it depends very much on whether you're selling car plus battery or all together. So, the pricing thing is also an important decision in the case. The next one is going to be the distribution channel. So at the moment of the case, Nissan was actually having around 600 dealers in the German market. So probably not all of them relevant for selling the Nissan Leaf, that remember, is a full-electric car, probably more aimed for city customers, so people living in big cities in Germany. So that's another decision. And the final decision's going to be the communication strategy. As you know, that's basically where the money's going to be spent and the case explains that they are using a consultant, to basically define different possible communication tools. So they're considering TV, they're considering of course the Internet, social media, magazines, billboards, so many different things. And once again, you should be able to give a recommendation in terms of what would be the best communication strategy for Nissan Leaf. Once again, considering that the objective of selling 2,000 units of the car, and the marketing budget that you're given is $2.5 million, excuse me, Euros. So that will be basically the case. I think it's an interesting case, it's a radical innovation, a very different product, very challenging, but I think very attractive for putting together a marketing plan. I hope you enjoyed and I hope you learned a lot with it. Thank you very much. [MUSIC]
