Kawasaki Ninja 1000 product launch marketing strategy and positioning

Consumer Product, New Product Marketing

Kawasaki Ninja 1000 Product Launch

In early 2011, Kawasaki launched their latest high performance street motorcycle, the Ninja 1000. The Ninja 1000 is designed specifically to optimize on-road performance while having the suspension and handling characteristics of a motorcycle built for track racing. The marketing mix is aimed primarily at the target audience of Baby Boomers (40 -- 65 years of age) who have had previous street motorcycles but want a higher performance bike to enjoy more competitive touring and driving. With this demographic in mind, the marketing mix is designed to provide the target market with exciting, engaging messaging that gives the prospective customer an opportunity to vicariously enjoy the motorcycle even before test driving it.

The product is designed to allow for wide variations in driver ability and has a wide, forgiving design, which makes it easier to handle across a broad range of terrain. It is also designed with state-of-the-art polymers and plastics, which give the bike a racy, lightweight look. The Kawasaki designers were able to integrate many of the concepts included in their high performance bikes into this one, further adding to the track-racing look of this product. Pricing is below that of a track-racing bike, at $10,900. This differentiates the Ninja 1000 both within the Kawasaki product line and in the industry as affordable high performance. The promotional aspects of the bike are heavily focused on social media and the use of video, two attributes that separate the marketing from traditional motorcycle promotions for Baby Boomers. The promotion is oriented to provide the target audience with the opportunity to feel young again using the bike. The Ninja 1000 is sold through Kawasaki dealers globally and began shipping in January 2011. Kawasaki unifies their product launches in major events sponsored globally, which further helped awareness of this latest product aimed at the mid-tier of the market.

URL: http://www.kawasaki.com/Products/product-specifications.aspx?id=499

QUESTION 2. College Websites

College and universities are increasingly relying on social media to attract and retain students, and this is evident from visiting the Joliet Junior College and Webster University (wesbter.edu) websites. Both of these colleges concentrate on using their websites as an accelerated and multi-media-based catalog of what they have to offer in terms of programs and majors. Both also attempt to define their unique value through graphics, pictures of the campus and students, and clear definitions of their majors and areas of emphasis. Both also rely on personal success stories of students working to better their lives through education as well, with Webster showing members of the U.S. armed forces. Webster has a significant number of campuses globally on U.S. military bases, hence the images of students in the military working to get their degrees.

The three approaches the Joliet Junior College website could improve would be to first get away from the large graphic on the first page and have a series of rotating panels, watch with a specific video of a student talking about their experiences there. The front page of the site is static and needs more life; video would be an excellent edition to it. Second, the social media icons are buried at the bottom of the site. They should be along the top left corner of the site so they are easily accessible and prospective students do not need to go digging for them. Third, the template of the site has a very large picture on the top and three columns below. Tis template is outdated. It needs to be more of a WordPress-like theme of having navigation across the side and much more of vitality to it; now it is pretty static in approach.

Colleges and universities can gain a wealth of information online from prospective students, existing students, alumni and those interested in their activities in the global community. Beginning with prospective students, websites can capture their interest in given programs by asking them to opt-in for more information. This would be considered a sales lead in a business for example. There is also the opportunity to analyze clickstream data using Google Analytics to see how effective the programs are generating additional traffic to the website. Colleges and universities could also determine how effective their search engine optimization (SEO) strategies are as well by regularly evaluating their performance using Google AdWords-based programs, in addition to Google Analytics. In short, the website could become the marketing platform for driving potential students to the site for additional information and to register for classes.

QUESTION 4. Marketing 101-V1 the Apple iPad Launch

The Apple iPad launch on January 27, 2010 illustrates how effectively a product introduction could be orchestrated across multiple distribution channels, geographies and product categories to create an entirely new market. The essence of the product launch in January of last year was to redefine what tablet computing had been defined in the past as, namely a shrunken Intel-based PC with abbreviated or smaller applications running on it and a cost-reduced screen. Instead, Apple chose to redefine the category by concentrating first on the screen itself. The resolution and glass substrate of the screen delivered an exceptional user experience that had never been seen before at the price point of below $1,000.

Apple chose to differentiate using state-of-the-art technology in the iPad to completely redefine the user experience of this product. Included were basic connectivity options for connecting to the Web, either through Wi-Fi or through paid services. Apple also expanded the memory of the iPad over the iTouch to allow for more storage of images, movies and other applications as well. Finally, Apple increased the quality of the sound systems to ensure a more effective user experience from viewing entertainment. In short, all product attributes and design objectives were aimed at how to optimize the user experience. Apple was betting that the user experience, not just the collection of technologies that comprise the iPad, would be the biggest attraction for the device. Apple also stayed true to its design objectives and consistent with its design standards, which delighted its most loyal customers. Apple is unique in that it has one of the most loyal customer bases in all of technology, and staying true to these development criteria was essential if they were going to successfully upsell the iPad to existing iPhone, Mac Powerbook, iPod and iTouch customers. In short, the product strategy was implicitly defined to also ensure a very high level of upsell and cross-sell of the iPad as well. Finally, Apple designed the internal digital rights management systems to be consistent with the iTunes platform, further ensuring sales of music, video and digital content sales. By aligning all product attributes to the user experience first, Apple also made this product market itself.

In terms of pricing, the iPad is lower than its predecessor Windows-based tablet PCs, which often had nearly a $100 premium due to operating system royalties alone. The pricing of the iPad is at $499 is $200 above the price of an iTouch yet has 65% more of the screen and increased Wi-Fi and support for 3rd party wireless Internet connections. The iPad is also differentiated with the screen technology, internal memory size and support for expanded Application Programmer Interface (API) calls so developers can create applications for it quickly. This has led to many news organizations creating iPad-specific applications to further promote their content, and also has led to many universities creating entire courses delivered on the iPad.

From a promotion standpoint, Apple excels at event marketing and the ability to manage multichannel marketing programs. The launch was coordinated across all Apple retail locations, which is how the company uses promotions and distribution to its advantage. Apple concentrates on promotions to drive traffic into their stores, in effect uniting these two areas of the marketing mix. Promotion is also heavily influenced by Steve Jobs, who heavily promote the iPad during the launch event in San Francisco. The iPad's promotional strategies also led to Apple creating entire segments of their stores where customers could test-drive the new iPad without any sales pressure or being rushed to buy. Apple concentrates on every aspect of the marketing mix driving an exceptional user experience, from the product definition through pricing and the tight integration of promotion and place (their stores) Apple works to define its identity in state-of-the-art innovation. In the first 30 days, 1 million units were sold.