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American Honda: Capturing & Retaining the Leadership Position Background In 1989 American Honda made a commitment to develop a program to market automobiles to the US Hispanic market. The first step was to conduct a nationwide search for a Hispanic agency. Later that year, Honda picked La Agencia de Orci in Los Angeles. Hondas first challenge to La Agencia was to "earn the right to sell to Hispanics." Consequently, we spent the first several months in research and developing programs that would introduce Honda to the Hispanic market in a meaningful and long-term way. Research
Hondas Hispanic research also identified problems and opportunities. |
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The Problems There was low awareness of Honda. Though slowly gaining acceptance, imports were still perceived as undesirable. Hispanic consumers thought of them as:
The Opportunity Research further confirmed that Hispanics wanted to be invited to buy... and to see themselves reflected in the advertising. Additionally, Hispanics wanted to see ads for the models they hoped to own: the top of the line models, with all the features, the luxury and elegance they aspired to. Objectives
Strategy
1. Cultural Enrichment To celebrate the cultural gems that Latin America has contributed to this country, Honda became the founding sponsor of the Ballet Folklorico de Mexicos U.S. Tour. Since 1989, the annual 20-city tour has been deepening Hondas relationship to the Hispanic community. |
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Support includes:
2.
Community Support It was feared the Hispanic community would not fully participate in the Census, resulting in a significant population undercount. Participation was essential to get a fair share of federal support in the form of schools, hospitals, recreational facilities, and representation. With this in mind MALDEF (Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund) came to Honda for support. Honda then set out to explain the benefits to Latinos of their being counted in the 1990 Census. |
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As a result, Honda was recognized as a major contributor in generating the highest level of Hispanic participation in the 1990 census, which led to increased representation of Hispanics in local and national government. 3. Sports
and Entertainment Sponsorships Sports Also, innovative soccer crawls developed for Hondas sponsorship of the 1990 World Cup had great appeal for the target audience, and have changed the way the advertising industry now approaches crawl advertising.
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Entertainment
4. Product Advertising Product advertising began in 1990, a full year after initiating activities on the strategic points described above. The advertising was designed to appeal to specific Hispanic needs, and to establish a relevant and aspirational image for each Honda model. Over the years, we have added models to the Hispanic lineup, and have refined product positioning for each model to enhance their appeal to specific target segments. In 1999, they are as follows:
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Results Honda has had the #1 and #2 selling models 8 years in a row!
Further, our research tells us that in addition to being a sales success, we have built and nurtured a solid brand with a loyal consumer franchise. |
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© 2002 Isabel Valdés - To contact the author, email: isabel@isabelvaldes.com or call (650) 322-1922 To order these books contact ParamountBooks.com or call (888) 787-8100 |