Volkswagen Viral Marketing for Volkswagen - MyAssignmenthelp

Question: Discuss about theVolkswagen Viral Marketing for Volkswagen. Answer: The model Citi Golf by Volkswagen was introduced in the country in the year 1984 and this car had the topmost demand in the market South African market as it was economical as well as it served all the demands of the customers of the country. But due to some major rules and regulations of the government of the country and also due to lack of safety on the part of the car, Volkswagen had to stop the production of this car and for that a campaign was announced for the people of South Africa in order to say goodbye to this car model. The campaign that was arranged by Volkswagen was based on a traditional approach and was a past oriented campaign. In todays world, the campaigns are not generally based in the past oriented features or the products of the company but this particular campaign from the part of the Volkswagen was based in the past and featured Citi Golf as a part of the campaign which was getting withdrawn from the South African market. This campaign was arranged with a motive to create brand recognition on the part of the customers of Volkswagen and an attempt was made to reach the customers perceived value of the services and the product value that is provided by the brand (Theron, 2012). As, with the closure of this particular product in the market, Volkswagen was planning to launch a new premium version of the same product, thus a campaign based on the past product, which is Citi Golf was arranged to create the demand for the premium version of the same product. Also, with the help of this particul ar campaign, the last few models of the Citi Golf was sold in the market with the help of the auction which states that fact that the price that was spent in the campaign by Volkswagen had paid off with the auction of the last few models of car and at the same time the promotion of the new premium version of Citi Golf was done in the market. Ogilvy, a partner of Volkswagen promotion in the South African market also helped a lot to promote the campaign that was organized by Volkswagen in the market with the help of different types of communication process through social media and also organized various places across various towns of the country in order to stop there so that people of the country who are emotional about the product, can sign their goodbye message on the car and be a part of the campaign (Ogilvy, 2013). There was also live recording that was telecasted in new channels and for all the promotion that has been done throughout the country; ZAR 16 million was the income from the special edition of the Citi Golf which states that fact that price played an important part in the campaign. For the success of a campaign, there are various methods of quantitative as well as qualitative measures that can be used in order to determine its success. The campaigns are conducted in order attract the potential customers of the organization towards the product and the services of the organization and for that reason, the outcomes of the campaigns are very significant to determine whether the results of the campaign are positive or negative. The following ways can be used in order to evaluate the effectiveness of a campaign which is mentioned below: Qualitative Measures: The qualitative measures that can be sued in order to measure the effectiveness of a campaign are mentioned below: Brand Recognition: Brand recognition on part of the organization can be a qualitative measure of the campaign that has been done by the organization (Zvilichovsky et al., 2015). The measurement of the brand recognition can be done after the campaign had taken place and when the customers are able to identify the brand easily it can be said that the brand recognition on the part of the customers has increased with the help of the campaign and this is one of the main qualitative measures of the campaign. Customer Perception: The campaign on the part of the organization can also change the perception of the customers on the part of the brand (Bign et al., 2012). After the campaign the perception of the customers towards the brand can be calculated and when in calculation, it has been found that the perception of the customers are positive towards the brand, it can be said that the campaign is successful and this is another way of measuring the perception of the customers. Quantitative Measures: Apart from the qualitative ways to measure the effectiveness of the campaign, there are also quantitative ways with the help of which the effectiveness of the campaign can be measured which are mentioned below: Sales: The marketing campaign of an organization focuses upon increase of the sales of the company services and the products and for that reason, the sales can of the company should be checked after the marketing campaign and if there is an increase in the sales of the organization, it can be said that the marketing campaign is successful, as in the case study, it can be seen that with the help of the marketing campaign of Citi Golf, the last few models got sold in high rate in the auction. Revenue: Revenue is also an important determinant of the positivity of the campaign that takes place on the part of the company. The higher the revenue of the organization in the end of a financial year in which the campaign had taken place, the higher is the positive effects of the campaign that it had on the customers of the organization and the revenue determines the quantitative measurement of the campaign (Parente et al., 2014). With the help of the viral making campaign, Volkswagen is able to promote the premium model of the Citi Golf model of the brand which is extremely popular in South Africa. In order to make the campaign for the goodbye tour of old Citi Golf model a viral one, the company made a lot of effort to have an impact of the emotion of the customers of the organization. As de to some regulations of the South African Government and due to lack of road safety, the most popular car in South African roads were pulled off from the market, Vlkswagen with the help of Ogilvy, the promotion partner of the company arranged a campaign in the country where social media promotion was off course there along with promoting the brand over the televisions news channels and also through YouTube videos. The customers of the brands were attracted over to sign their messages for biding a goodbye to the most popular and favourite car of the country and this was arranged in various towns throughout the country (Gree nhouse, 2014). There was also a huge travel route which was designed by Ogilvy which the last manufactured Citi Golf in the country travelled and some special edition pieces was then kept for sale with the help of the auction which helped the company to earn a lot of money in the last few cars of the company. The signature and the messages of the emotionally attached customers also engaged the customers of the brand physically towards the campaign and that is the reason the campaign went viral over the country and also in the internet with the help of the social media site page creation and also through the live telecasting of campaign in YouTube. As the customers of the country are attached to this particular brand emotionally, the launch of the premium segment of this particular model is a superior idea from the managing director David Powel. Thus, running the campaign on the basis of the emotional upsurge of the customers at the correct time made the campaign go viral and it also helped the brand to sale the last few products of the particular model at high price at auction which is a positive aspect which was played by the viral marketing campaign (Denning, 2015). In large organizations such as Volkswagen, the marketing strategy of the company should be designed in such a way that it fulfils the objectives of the company. The marketing manager have various responsibility to formulate the marketing strategies of the organization which can fulfil the company objectives and for that reason, there are a variety of steps that the marketing managers need to follow: Firstly, the marketing manager views the objectives of the company and tries to formulate the marketing strategy in line with the company objectives (Lantos, 2015). Secondly, it should be known to the managers that what is the product of the company and what services does the company produce in order to segment the market according to the customers and target the customers of the organization. Also the positioning of the products are done by the marketing managers depending upon the products that the organizations manufacturing. For instance, when the product is a fuel efficient car, then the target is the medium and lower segment of the economy. Thirdly, the marketing mix of the company is designed by the marketing managers as per the budget that has been allocated to the manager and for that reason; the managers also have to depend on the product specification and the amount of product that will be manufactured (Fifield, 2012). Fourthly, the marketing promotional activities depend on the market that the company tries to reach for the sale of their products and for instance, if the company tries to reach a market of short number of customers, then the promotional activity that will be used by the marketing managers can be local newspapers, local television channels and so on, while a huge market can be captured with the help of promotional activities through social media and television or radio. Social networking is a buzzword in the 21st century and it is full of people from younger generation as well as people from older generation (Erdo?mu? and Cicek, 2012). Social media sites like Facebook is hugely populated and there are many organizations which promotes there campaign with the help of the social media sites and the campaign Goodbye Citi Golf was also promoted with the help of Facebook which helped it a lot to get popularity. With the help of the creation of the pages in facebook, the marketing campaign attracted the customers from all over the country and especially the youths of the country took part in the campaign as the youths are there in large number in facebook. There are various benefits of facebook marketing campaign that helped Volkswagen which is mentioned below: Firstly, the marketing campaign that occurred in Facebook and was conducted by Volkswagen and their partner Ogilvy was promoted in a very low cost, as the cost of promotion of campaign is very low in facebook and it helped Volkswagen to save their cost. Secondly, with the help of the interaction with the community and the customers with the help of the facebook pages, Volkswagen was able to promote the campaign more and this helped in the popularity of the campaign. Thirdly, with the Goodbye Citi Golf campaign, Volkswagen was removing their old version of the Citi Golf model and was launching the premium version of the car and it was discussed with the prospective clients about the prices, specs and other features of the premium car that was about to get launched with the help of facebook page. Lastly, facebook likes and shares helped Volkswagen a lot to spread the awareness about the campaign to the potential customers of the country and thus it can be said that Facebok played a pretty important role in the promotion of the campaign Goodbye Citi Golf. The long term consumers was also affected by the campaign that was prompted with the help of Facebook as they are emotionally attached with the brand and it can be said that in spite of being a long term customer, the departure of their favourite model of the car brought sad news to them, but at the same time the launch of the premium segment news of the car brought a joy to their mind with the help of the social media site announcement (Hortlik, 2014). References: Theron, W., 2012. The impact of new media on motoring journalism in South Africa (Doctoral dissertation). Ogilvy, D., 2013. Ogilvy on advertising. Vintage. Zvilichovsky, D., Inbar, Y. and Barzilay, O., 2015. 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