Getz was the first luxury hatch back to be launched in India. The brand in a way was far ahead of its time. It was launched in a market predominantly oriented towards sedans. The failure of Getz was because of two reasons :
a. Value Proposition
b. Positioning
c.Competition.
The failure of Getz and success of Swift are two sides of the same coin. Both brands belong to the same segment and almost in the same price band. But while Swift rocked the market, Getz had to bite the dust.
Getz when launched in the market was very aggressively priced. Infact the brand was priced at par with sedans like Ford Ikon and Indigo. Indian consumers were not able to understand the value proposition of a high priced Getz. The brand also was not able to tell the consumer as to why they should chose Getz compared to a Sedan. The problem with such a high pricing strategy is that it creates an impression in the consumer's mind which will be difficult to change. Theoretically this is called narrow positioning. When Maruti launched Swift, Getz suffered because consumers perceived Swift to be a better value for money car compared to Getz. The reason is that consumers know that Maruti cars are less costly to maintain than Hyundai cars. Swift was bigger, sporty and competitively priced which put Getz in a very tough situation.
The campaigns for Getz was also way off the mark. The brand never had a clear positioning . When it was launched, there was no USP or differentiation. The brand started talking about fun then moved to space. So it lacked a clear brand identity which further accelerated the decline .
In marketing terms, we say that brand should offer some compelling reasons to customers to buy. Getz was not able to give any such compelling reasons. The brand had lot of design similarity with Zen which defied its pitch on premiumness. Swift had a radical design which created a newness to the brand.Getz did not have such a "wow" factor.
The recent launch of Hyundai i20 was the final nail in the coffin for Getz. i20 has more chance of survival because the segment of premium hatchback has now developed. Consumers are now aware of this segment and there is genuine consumer interest in this segment.
Getz could have reaped the benefit of the segment it had created , had it offered itself at the price range of Rs 3.5 - 4 lakh. ( I know it is easy to sit in my chair and suggest the pricing strategies). That price range could have done wonders for this brand.
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Very interesting Blog, Harish!
ReplyDeleteI work with media and is particularly interested in brands and its evolution. This blog has been a gr8 find for me.
Thnx for putting up your views and hope you continue doing the same.
Good Work!
Btwn, Do you have a twitter id which i can follow ?
@rajsivan
A great piece of analysis. However i feel in India if we leave apart BOP segment which is certainly one of the most lucrative one provided the products are designed keeping in mind there needs, there are two other interesting segments of Indian consumers which is Value for Monay and another one is Money for Value. When we talk about Maruti it is certainly Value for money segment and no doubt Marulti has the largest share in India Automobile Sector thanks to the Legend of Maruti 800 another entrant to this value for money segment is TATA NANO but i really feel what has got money for value segment got to do in this for e.g Skoda Fabia which is certianly over priced and for that matter rightly pointed out GETZ being over priced and ahead of its time
ReplyDeleteIts really delight to watch the scenario now in small car segment where players like honda, VW, and many others will launch there small cars in the price range of less than 5 lakh
Does it mean strategy followed by Skoda Fabia or for that matter GETZ was a big NO NO or there some other unknown facts which we are missing
Its interesting to know all about this Getz.Personally I also like Swift car very much.Its good to know some new information Getz and Swift which I did not know before.
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