1. Introduction / Background of Company and Market
Fisker – Karma is a hybrid luxury sport sedan car that manufactured under the Fisker
– Automotive Company. Fisker – Automotive Company is an automotive company that focus
on producing luxury sport cars which with plug – in hybrid technology. The company
headquarter is in Irvine, California [USA]. Because of the rapid growth of both the luxury
and hybrid car market in US, Fisker Automotive Company come up with a new innovative
product that offer both the luxury and the eco – friendly sport car. Based on my research, I
found that from the end of 2008 in the mid of 2009 there are 1,400 people who already
ordered Fisker – Karma.
2. Marketing Objective
Our marketing objective is to create product awareness among the target audience by
15 percent in a year. To achieve our marketing objective, we as marketers would like suggest
not only to focus on the advertising but also focus on other promotional mix such as; public
relation, sales promotion and so on.
Target Market:
o People who prefer hybrid car
o People who prefer sport sedan car
o High Class people, since our product is a luxury car
3. Product
Our product known as “Fisker – Karma” is a hybrid luxury sport sedan car and the
first plug – in hybrid sport car in the market manufactured under Fisker – Automotive
Company. The Karma uses Q-DRIVE plug-in hybrid technology, developed exclusively for
Fisker Automotive by Quantum Technologies. A fully-charged Karma burns no fuel for the
first 50 miles. Venture further and the gasoline engine turns a generator to charge the lithium
ion battery. Once the 50-mile electric range has been exceeded, the car operates as a normal
hybrid vehicle. This balance of electric and gas range makes it entirely possible that Karma
drivers who charge their car overnight and commute less than 50 miles a day will achieve an
average fuel economy of 100 mpg (2.4L/100km) per year [Fisker, Henrik].
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4. Advertising Campaign
Theme; The Karma, Eco – Friendly, Elegance, Luxury, and Sporty sedan car.
As one of the promotional mix tools, I would like to focus more on advertising to help
s promote our product. In this case, I think advertising is the most efficient tool to promote
our product, because the coverage of the potential customers is wider compare to other
promotional tools, more cost effective if we calculate it for each individual, but advertising
also has a weak point; since advertising is a “Non-Direct promotion”, we as promoters cant
get feedback from the customers.
There are 2 types of advertising, we would like to use
1. Print Advertising: Newspapers, Magazines [more to Automotive magazines, but
also in some others type of magazines for example; life style, business and so on],
and Fliers.
Estimated Budget: 200,000 US Dollar.
2. Broadcasting Advertising: Television / Year, Radio / Year, and Online/ Internet
[Build up own Website]
For the broadcasting advertising, especially the television advertising the design
or model is more likely as a persuasive advertising rather than as an informative
advertising, the new television advertising more likely to show the audience the
elegance, and the eco – friendly aspects rather than information about the product.
We as advertisers chose television advertising as our persuasive advertising
because television advertising offer both the audio and visual aspect which is the
printed advertising or radio advertising do not offer, therefore television
advertising is the most attractive and effective advertising to create both
awareness of the product or also can convince the target audience to buy the
product.
For the radio advertising and online / internet advertising the design or model is
more likely as an informative advertising.
Estimated Budget: 300,000 US Dollars
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Our Advertising Objectives:
1. Informative advertising; to build awareness within target audience, and deliver the
knowledge regarding the product
2. Persuasive advertising; to create preferences, liking, and conviction toward our
product.
One example of our new printed advertising design [our own design];
From the sample design of our printed advertising above, it can clearly mention
about the elegance, and eco – friendly aspects of our product/
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5. Timing
There are 3 scheduling method in advertising, they are; continuity method, flighting
method and pulsing method. For this new advertising campaign, we would like to suggest
using the continuity method. The continuity method is actually meant the volume of we
advertises our product is equal for each months within one year.
6. Others Planned Promotional Activities
There are 4 more planned promotional activities, we would like to add up to help us to
create awareness of our product.
a. Public Relations
We can include publicity on our public relations plan to help us on promote and build
awareness for our product. Our public relations plan actually is to participate and be active on
many special events, in this case environment and sport events because we offer products that
have very unique taste on those both section [Sport and Hybrid Car]. We believe PR and
Publicity can help us on promoting, building awareness and maintaining good point of view
for both our company and product.
Activities: Participate in trade show events, automotive showroom gallery,
Estimated Budget: 0 US Dollars, consider the events are free-paid.
b. Sales Promotion
Under sales promotion, we would like to create and manage some events [contests,
automotive gallery show and so on] of our product. For example; by creating automotive
gallery show event, we believe that it can help us on promote our product. In my opinion
automotive gallery event is more likely as an informative event for our potential customers,
why I can say so? Because on the basic idea of the automotive gallery is to provide
information regarding of our product to the potential customers, including any information or
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detail of any parts of our product and also there can be test – drive performance of our
product consider it as a trial. We also can set up a contest of our product, for example:
modification contest. The purpose of the contest it self is to attract more potential customers
and also to increase our product and company image.
Activities: Participate in trade show events, automotive gallery, and sponsorship.
Estimated Budget: 200,000 US Dollar for 5 events in a year.
c. Direct Marketing
In general, direct marketing is a promotional tool that approaches the potential
consumers or consumers directly. To support our advertising objective and marketing
objective which is to create awareness, I would like to include direct marketing as one of our
promotion tool. The main task of this plan is to improve our database system in order to
support our direct marketing activities to help us make this advertising campaign successful.
By improving our database system, there will be some advantages toward our direct
marketing activities.
Activities: Sending Brochures, catalogs, and fliers, tele - marketing, and direct –
phone contact
The Advantages:
1. With good database support, we can send the brochures, catalogs, and fliers
correctly, that’s mean there will be no wrong shipment of the brochures, catalogs,
and so on
2. With good database support, we can operate our tele marketing and direct – phone
contact promotion effectively.
Why I suggest using the database record to help us on direct marketing? Because
usually the database included the buying power, buying behaviour and any information we
need to use to approach our consumers. If we use that database efficiency, I believe it will be
easier to contact directly both our consumers and potential consumers.
Estimated Budget: 100,000 US Dollar
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d. Personal Selling
Under the personal selling plan, I would like to categorize us as the “Order Takers and
Order Makers” Order takers mean the customers are the one who approach us and Order
Makers mean we are the one who approach the target customers. To support our personal
selling plan, I would like to suggest building several showrooms for our product; therefore
the customers can easily come to approach us and inquiry about our product [Order Takers],
and also by improving our direct – contact promotion, and tele marketing also can improve
our personal selling.
Activities:
1. Order Takers; Build several showrooms
2. Order Takers; Improve quality of tele marketing and direct contact promotion
services.
Estimated Budget: 200,000 US Dollar
7. Past Advertising Campaign
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Some screen shots of the Fisker – Karma past advertising campaign
Taken from;
http://gas2.org/2009/03/13/fiskers-first-tv-commercial-for-their-100-mpg-plug-in-hybrid/\
Analysis of the past advertising campaign video
If you take a quick look of the television advertising above, the past advertising
campaign is all about the information [Informative advertising]. I can so because on the
advertising above it’s more likely focusing on the function, design, engine of the car and
others information regarding the product.
8. Product and Brand Image
We would like to position our product as the first generation of eco – friendly luxury
sport sedan car.
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9. Market Research Result

The U.S. remains the largest hybrid car market, accounting for nearly 70% of global
hybrid sales in 2005 due in a large part to high oil prices and increased environmental
awareness. [Kenney,Brad]

Toyota and Honda are the leading players in the global hybrid market. [Kenney,Brad]

In the global hybrid car industry, strategies differ from player to player. Toyota, for
example, aims to offer a full lineup of models by emphasizing on the output power of
its hybrid system, whereas Honda concentrates on the development of small cars.
[Kenney,Brad]
US April 2009 Hybrid Car sales figures:
Prius
Civic
Camry
Insight
Fusion
Escape
Highlander
RX400h
Malibu
VUE
Tahoe
Altima
Yukon
Escalade
Silverado
Milan
Mariner
GS450h
Aura
LS600h
Total
8,385
3,361
2,198
2,096
1073
1049
933
655
547
338
261
222
147
115
95
92
85
33
31
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21,735
Based on the market research information provided above, I can say that Fisker – Karma can
be the most competitive competitor in the future in hybrid automotive market industry in US, so far
there are 1,400 customers ordered our product, based on those number our product is very close to be
the best 5 and those number will be increase at the time.
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10. Budget
Total Promotion Budget for a Year
PROMOTIONAL MIX [US Dollar]
Advertising
Print
500,000
Broadcasting
200,000
50%
300,000
20%
Public Relations
0
0%
Sales Promotion
200,000
20%
Direct Marketing
100,000
10%
Personal Selling
200,000
20%
Total Budget
1,000,000
30%
100%
11. Conclusion
Our product is a luxury hybrid sport sedan car, to create product awareness, we as
advertisers would like to use the help of promotional mix tools to achieve our main goal. To
be more specific, we are more focusing on advertising compare to the others promotional
mix, because advertising can cover more audiences compare to others, to achieve our
advertising objectives, we categorized our advertising into 2 types [Persuasive and
Informative], for the new television advertising we more focusing to create it more persuasive
because the last television advertising campaign it’s more likely to be informative
advertising. From 1 Million budget, we invest 50% of the budget on the advertising [500K],
sales promotion 20% [200k], direct marketing 10% [100k], and personal selling 20% [200k].
We concluded that those promotional tools can help us on building awareness both of our
product and company, and also improving the image for both our product and company.
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