Land Rover North America Inc

Case Study –Land Rover North America Inc.

1. Background of the case

This case describes how Land Rover North America, Inc. (LRNA) has redesigned their dealerships and selling process with the objective of building and enhancing equity for its brand. Land Rover is a niche player in a very crowded and rapidly maturing product category. Competition is fierce and is dominated by large global competitors with extensive dealer networks who differentiate their products largely by size, features, and price. The company has relatively few dealerships and cannot afford the volume of advertising or promotion that its primary competitors can. The company must choose to depend upon positioning its product as a specialty brand, characterized by brand insistence on the part of its buyers. Charles Hughes, President and CEO of Land Rover North America, Inc. (LRNA) is debating three positioning options for the new $30,000 Land Rover Discovery. The positioning decision will help LRNA settle on advertising messages and other communications strategies. The current situation is that demand for SUVs is changing from symbols of wealth and prestige to experiences. This is seen from the fact that there is an increasing SUV purchasing trend and also with the increase in consumer wealth in US.

2. Problems

• Determination of an appropriate positioning strategy

Land Rover North America Inc needs to determine a positioning strategy for its newly launched Discovery v/s its other products Land Rover Defender and Range Rover. Currently the company did not clearly differentiate the positioning of the three SUV’s.

The Company did not address who the target segment were for the three SUV’s and what are the USP’s or benefits of each product.

The other problem faced by the company is how to position the brand “Land Rover”?

• Lack of Brand Awareness & Deciding on right marketing mix

The Customer Survey on Brand Recall [Exhibit No: 10] shows clearly that “Land Rover” brand commands...