Since its creation in 1903, Buick has been a long Essays - Transport

Since its creation in 1903, Buick has been a long Essays - Transport Since its creation in 1903, Buick has been a long standing giant in the automotive industry. Overcoming bankruptcy just one year after its creation, Buick quickly became " the N umber one producer of automobiles in 1908 , surpassing the combined production of Ford and Cadillac, its closest competitors (Gustin,1993) . " Buick is known for many things; such as the creation of the overhead valve engine or its widely known smooth engines, but Buick is also known to have a reputation for wide bodied boat like vehicles that only elderly people drive. Over the years the reputation of Buick has stayed the same, its an old people car, the "Grandpa of Automobiles (Gustin, 1993) ". But in more recent times, they have changed their whole marketing strategy and have caught the attention of the younger generations with advancements in technology and release newer models with turbocharged engines. These changes however did not change how Buick handles its busine ss, they have attracted younger consumers, but have stayed true to their core market. To attract a younger generation of consumers, Buick had to test out the market in some of the following segments: market value, age on consumers, advertising, popularity, and technological necessities. They had to evaluate exactly how to go about these categories, without jeopardizing their reputation and could not risk losing out on the younger consumer market. Primarily an elderly vehicle, they had to embrace the idea of changing up their entire marketing platform. The company had to remove the image of only elder drivers driving Buicks. The advancements in the physical look of the vehicle also helped with the changing of consumer minds. Buick also launched a series of commercials where the slogan was "Is that a Buick" coming out of the mouths of many young people but also older people, showing that they have revamped their lineup and its indistinguishable as just an old person car. Changing the internals of the vehicle, with newer technologies has also changed the market value for Buick, Including the newest advancements that every company is going for: Apple Car Play and Wireless QI Charging. These new features, and physical changes were only some of the steps to revamp the marketing of the company. Revamping the marketing platform came with the collaboration of Zach King," a trick cinematographer who works in a medium called Vine (Bond,2014) ". King used his fame and notoriety on the social media app to advertise for Buick, and quickly gained them more viewers and followers on social media platforms. King was able to reach the younger generations of consumers, using cinematic enhancements to make the vehicle more likeable. " The average age of the of a Buick buyer was 60.3, the highest of all mainstream makes, and second only to Lincoln, which IHS classifies as a luxury brand. (Bond,2014) " This is a statistic that Buick wanted to change. They researched the market and did surveys on what consumers would like to see in their product. "We're attacking head-on the false familiarity of Buick being an old person's brand . (Colias,2014) " That is the new marketing plan created by Buick-GMC Chief Duncan Aldred. Buick is part of the General Motors family including GMC, Chevrolet, and Cadillac. Since its revamp and relaunch the Buicks sales went up twelve percent from its previous position, while Cadillac dropped to negative two percent in sales. Further on since the revamp, in the second quarter of the following sales year, Buick had an unprecedented number of new customers. " Most Buick newcomers came from Chevrolet at seventeen percent, followed by GMC nine percent, Ford five percent, Toyota four percent and Honda and Cadillac with three percent each. (Colias,2014) " These numbers reflect how well Buick has done with their marketing and research. The numbers that stick out most are the Chevrolet, GMC, and Cadillac, owned by the same parent company, but Buick has now taken over as the preferred child in the family. Some may ask why Buick did a complete switch up all at once instead of over a few year time span. The answer may not be as simple as we would like to think, but in the opinion of