Derek Li's Blog

Today, I was looking around for a blog post by my fellow bloggers on marketing and I stumbled upon Erick Yao’s post about expensive and lower price vehicles. I totally agree with his perspective of expensive and cheap cars where one should not say something is expensive or not since it all depends on the perception of the target market. Since BMW, Benz, or Audi is marketing towards higher income families/individuals, they are going to be priced relatively high but they are built with more prominent materials of course. So, one should not judge based on the price tag because it is based on your income bracket and if you could afford it, then it is not expensive. People need to understand that everything is relative. To a wealthy person, a luxury vehicle is not pricey but to an average person it definitely is overpriced. Only the intended target market will understand the marketing strategy and accept it as the way it is.

The only thing I would disagree with Erick’s post is when he says, “lower income customers would want a cheaper car that possesses minimum safety standards.” I believe that despite the limitations of disposable income, one will still WANT and CHOOSE a safe car and a safe car does not necessarily mean it is more expensive. Every automobile is required to go through rigorous safety tests by the government, and nowadays even low price tag companies such as Hyundai have very high rankings for safety. What I would say to add to his statement and make it more clear is that maybe the lower priced vehicles don’t have as much safety FEATURES, such as blind spot detection, rear-view camera, sensors to keep you within your own lane when you drift out of it, and sensors that stop the car if objects are in front of your car. Those features are the extras that you get for the higher sticker price that you pay. Maybe that is what he meant, I don’t know. Anyways, it was a great post that got me interested and got me thinking.

Blog to you guys next week, cya!