...Thorr Cruisers Paper Student MKT/421 October 11, 2010 Instructor: Name Thorr Cruisers Paper In the Thorr Cruiser simulation, the sales of Thorr Cruiser have been decreasing steadily. This forced the need to redevelop the company’s marketing plan, which includes the determination of whether to introduce a new line of motorcycles. The simulation educates the student with the interpretation of the market research data using a perceptual map. “Perceptual mapping can be used to give you that additional insight into the current position of your product and its potential in the face of competition” (Outsourcing2India, 2010). The simulation uses this technique to analyze the perception of the Thorr Cruiser to ascertain the reasons for declining sales and to formulate a strategy for improvement in the positioning of Thorr Cruiser. The improvement of the positioning of Thorr Cruiser will rely on implementing changes in the company’s marketing mix. The marketing mix refers to the combination of product, place, promotion, and pricing strategies. The final marketing mix that will help reposition Thorr Cruiser. While running the simulation the marketing mix used was price, services, engineering, and financial options. Price is important to position Thorr Cruiser as a premium product. Pricing affects the perceptions of customers and so lifestyle pricing has been used. In addition, lifestyle pricing will support quality engineering so that the Thorr Cruiser that rolls out...
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...Perceptual Maps in Marketing- Cruiser Thorr (Simulation Summary) MKT/421 The first phase is to identify the parameters that are important to Thorr Cruiser. The first parameter is the extent of contemporariness of Thorr Cruiser. Thorr Cruiser is not seen as modern, but as old school; there are few who would want to purchase Thorr Cruiser in the current market. So the parameter of contemporariness has been identified as important for Thorr Cruiser. The recommended solution is to maintain the current price, the bike should be publicized through Hollywood film and internet, financial services, and customization options being offered will fail unless there are visual differences in the bike Thorr Cruiser is trying to reposition. The bike should have differences which should be substantial in design, in power, controls, and steering. The bike must be seen as desirable by an average user, only then will it be repositioned. If the product is seen as different and is repositioned using price, service offering, quality engineering, Hollywood/internet advertising, and financial services, the results will be a successful repositioning among the critical parameter, namely contemporariness. The second phase is to determine whether to reposition Thorr Cruiser or to launch a new motorcycle based on the analysis of present products. The situation was that Thorr Cruiser was not able to differentiate itself from its competitors, thus it was losing profits due to its customers...
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... Thorr Motorcycles is a company started with a history of its strength and uniqueness, kind of like the Harley-Davidson of current times. Many people understand that this motorcycle brand is one to work up to. Many motorcycle lovers know that some of the types of bikes are bought by different age groups; some people prefer the shorter distance style bikes for their sleekness, speed, and price range. More experienced or even older bikers prefer the cruisers or long-range bikes for their style, comfort, and look. The problem with Thorr’s company is that the cruiser bike is losing sales. Whether this be because older people not being able to afford these style bikes, lack of interest or just changes within the motorcycling culture this bike needs to be revisioned by consumers. This problem has been an issue with Buick in the past. Their cars and SUVs were being noted as elderly styled vehicles. Buick took initiative and tried to advertise ways that made their cars more current and updated as compared to years before to entice the younger age groups. Although their attempt was less successful than hoped, they are still running and selling vehicles. The solutions for the sales drop is the ideas of publicizing Thorr’s cruiser in Hollywood films and the Internet, decreasing the price of the current cruiser models, financial services within Thorr, better service programs, and free trial rides. ...
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...Reporting Now that you understand how goods are produced and sold in SAP, section 3 will show you how to extract information. While SAP excels at keeping the production process on time and error free, another benefit of the system is the huge amount of readily accessible information it stores. The primary cause for SAP’s success in the ERP market has come from its shared database structure. By using a single large database to store ALL system data, information is kept incredibly accurate and is always up to date. It did not take SAP users long to realize that this also meant that management could use the system information to make highly educated business decisions. Which would you rather have to make an important decision: a report which was compiled over a week with information from last month’s sales, or a report which was built a few minutes ago, using the company’s up to the minute SAP database? There are many different ways to form useful reports with SAP. The most common is to run one of the many preconfigured reports which come with the system. If the preconfigured reports do not show you what you wish to see, you have the option of creating custom reports using two methods: Report Painter and Report Writer. Report Painter is the easier of the two. The Report Painter tool sets up a report template for you. All you have to do is decide what information you want to see, and enter the appropriate key figures and characteristics in the blank report...
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...After reading Woody Hochswender‘s essay “Did My Car Join Al Qaeda?” I was left thinking he had not supported the characteristics of a persuasive argument. Although the argument includes key components of a persuasive essay such as a strong opening and establishment of his position on the benefits of driving a SUV, it lacked the essential factual components that would otherwise convince readers to believe his viewpoint. Mr. Hoschswender attempted to acknowledge the benefits of an SUV by utilizing both pathos and logos appeals. Appealing to one’s emotions (pathos) and knowing that children are the gateway to the heart, he points out that “Four-wheel-drive vehicles allow workers to get to and from their jobs, and parents to transport their children safely to school, sporting events, ballet classes and the rest” (Hochswender, 2003). However, he fails to consider opposing views on exactly who SUVs are safer for. Researchers suggests, “Statistically, SUVs are no safer for their occupants than are cars on any of the major measures (front and side collision, rollover, etc.), and in some cases are significantly less safe” (Vanderheinden, 2006, p.30). Additionally he attempts to support his argument by appealing logically (logos), using aspects of his hometown environment by saying to readers that “This is not just because we have plenty of long, steep driveways and miles and miles of dirt roads. We also have had more than 70 inches of snow this winter” (Hochswender, 2003), showing...
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...Sakichi Toyoda was born in 1867 and in the 1900’s he founded the Toyoda group, a company focused on the production of looms for the textile business. In 1933, under the influence of his son Kiichiro Toyoda, who was more interested in automobiles, Sakichi opened a new division focused on car manufacturing.It was in 1937 that there was a separation between the two businesses and consequently Toyota Motor Company was born. In order to get a deeper understanding over the industry, Kiichiro studied the production system of Ford, the leading car manufacturing company at that time, and later adopted and improved it. Ten years later, in 1947, Toyota started to produce large-scale passenger cars, competing with Ford and General Motors but suffered from Japan’s economy that was going through a rough patch after the Second World War. In the beginning of the 1950’s Eiji Toyoda became president and developed a different process, the Just-in-time system and in the mid 1950’s the Kanban. The company entered the American market in 1958, but only had its first success there in 1968 with the model Corolla and in the 1990’s expanded to other places throughout the world. Throughout the last few years, Toyota, General Motors (GM) and Volkswagen (VW) have been the three main players competing in the automobile industry. In 2011, GM was the leader with 9.03 million dollars of sales, followed by VW with 8.16 million dollars in sales and finally Toyota with 7.9 million dollars. However, these results...
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...1-68. Assume 6,000 children go to Disneyland today. How much additional revenue will Disneyland receive if it raises the cost of admission from $31 to $41 and lowers the age limit for adults from 12 years old to 10 years old? 2-34. Joy Wigens, who works at Putnam Investments, received a check for $1,600. She deposited ¼ of the check in her Citibank account. How much money does Joy have left after the deposit? 2-36. Lester bought a piece of property in Vail, CO. The sides of the land measure 115 ½ feet, 66 ¼ feet, 106 1/8 feet and 110 ¼ feet. Lester wants to know the perimeter (sum of all sides) of his property. Can you calculate the perimeter for Lester? 2-38. Seventy-seven million people were born between 1946 and 1964. The U.S. Census classifies this group of individuals as baby boomers. It is said that today and every day for the next 18 years, 10,000 baby boomers will reach 65. If ¼ of the 65 and total technology usage for this age group as a fraction. 2-40. Bernie Falls bought a home from Century 21 in Houston, TX that is 9 ½ times as expensive as the home his parents bought. Bernie’s parents paid $30,000 for their home. What is the cost of Bernie’s new home? 2-42. A local Target store bought 90 pizzas at Pizza Hut for its holiday party. Each guest ate 1/6 of a pizza and there was no pizza left over. How many guest did Target have for the party? 2-44. Lionel Sullivan works for Berger King. He is paid time and one-half for Sundays. If...
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...expectation of the product. The motorcycle company Thorr Motors perceptual maps were used to create a marketing plan to help maintain a high trademark image of the company’s motorcycles. The Marketing Dictionary (2010) definition of perceptual maps is a “process by which consumers' perceptions of an existing product are charted.” (2x01) The sales of the Thorr Cruiser are decreasing. The reason this is occurring is that Thorr’s Cruisers target customers are getting older and are starting to outgrow the means of what the Thorr’s cruisers represents. Younger customers do not see themselves with a Thorr cruisers lifestyle image because they are most interested in cheaper motorcycles because of their low incomes. The scenario for Thorr’s Cruiser’s wanted to determine the position in the market by choosing four relevant parameters that will reflect the highest potential. For phase one the parameters that were selected were lifestyle image, services offered, price, and quality engineering. Lifestyle image was selected because the image for the Cruiser Thorr was being outgrown by the period target audience and was not identifiable with younger customers. The lifestyle image for Thorr’s cruisers is already set important information collected is helpful to keep image to satisfy both older and younger customers. Another parameter chosen was the services offered because compared to their competitors the services offered by the Cruiser Thorr are limited. The more additions a product comes...
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...Using a Perceptual Map for Thorr Motorcycle, Inc. MKT/421 March 25, 2013 Perceptual Map Company Bio Motorcycles have been marketed as the masculine, mobility and freedom machine since the early 1900s. Crusier Thorr is no different. It is a high-powered, efficient motorcycle modeled after the God of Thunder himself. Cruiser Thorr is prized for it strong, honest and dependable product design; however, with the changing demographics of its target market, the company has hired a new Marketing Manager to re-market the high-end bike to a younger market. This paper will describe the decisions made by the new marketing manager and the company’s attempt to re-invent their marketing strategies to push this bike into a demographically challenging market. The Situation An important attribute to Thorr’s Motorcycle, Inc. is Lifestyle Image. Lifestyle image creates the need for customers to purchase the line “Cruiser Thorr” because of the masculinity and freedom it represents. The perceptual map is a visual description of a customer's perception of the brand. Thorr's motorcycles were positioned as high-priced and that perception did not fit the market for younger consumers that have less money to spend then mature consumers. Thor began to see a decline in its market position due to the escalated price and the life style image presented was targeted toward the older generation. Considering the decline in sales, Thorr’s Motorcycles, Inc. had to make changes to the image it projected...
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...situation Cruiser Thorr (a 1500cc power cruiser priced @ $25,800) and their targeted customer’s ages; 35 to 50 years old, not buying the cruiser due to getting older in age and no longer interested in the lifestyle. The younger consumer that they want to target 21-35 years of age are looking into buying a motorcycle that cost less than the cruiser due to their income. There are two options to see whether sales will increase by maintain the current position in repositioning the same motorcycle or building a new motorcycle that would entice a younger consumer. The solution that I have recommended for the Cruiser Thorr is to reposition the Cruiser Thorr by providing financing options and increase services. The lifestyle, the quality of the engineering. I have decided to maintain the price, but offer financial services. The Thorr Motorcycles is a 5 billion dollar company that manufactures motorcycles, they also sell licensed products of their brand such as shoes, t-shirts, toys, leather clothing, and etc. Thorr Motorcycles sells a couple hundred thousand units per year and they are growing every day. They are able to sell so many units due to their high brand image in the market. Thorr Motorcycles provides rider training, motorcycle rentals, dealer training and dealer software services. The Thorr Motorcycles concentrate on three main objectives that can construct perceptual map, create a marketing plan with a budget and see if the parameter values for the future of Thorr Motorcycles...
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...Cruiser Thorr Motorcycles Cruiser Thorr Motorcycles In the case of Thorr Motorcyles Inc., the company’s dilemma was to figure out how to stop the steady decline of motorcycle sales. The company’s once successful motorcycle was now in the declining phase of the product life cycle. This paper will discuss the recommended solutions, the results, the relationship between differentiation and positioning of products or services, and the effect of the product life cycle with this particular product. In order to revitalize the sales of Cruiser Thorr, there has to be market research conducted. The research was based on competitors with similar products and what was offered that helped the competition sustain sales. The competitors that were researched for Cruiser Thorr were Anzai and Espritique. The parameter values that were compared were lifestyle image, service offerings, price, quality engineering, cool, safety, product uniqueness, and product design and styling. Based on these values, Cruiser Thorr was lacking in a few categories in comparison to its competition. As a new member of the marketing team and conducting quality research, the first call to action was to re-assign a couple of the parameter values that were previously a priority. The initial parameter values that sustained the Cruiser Thorr motorcycle success were lifestyle image, service offerings, price, and quality engineering. The four parameters that were decided upon were cool, price, safety, and quality...
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...technique used by marketers to visually display the perceptions of current and potential customers. Thorr Motorcycles is a billion dollar company that offers services in rider training, dealer training, dealer software packages, and motorcycle rentals. The image of Thorr Motorcycles have been sought by customers for years but it is a different image that new customers are looking for. The purpose of this simulation is to focus on three objectives. The first objective is to analyze the situation by constructing a perceptual map. The second objective is to recommend solutions for the organization by creating a marketing plan with a budget to determine whether to reposition the organization or launch a new product. The final objective is the results that determine the parameter values for the future of the organization. Phase I - The Situation The major situations in this simulations was Thorr Motorcyles faced a decrease in sales of its top product, the Cruiser Thorr. Other situations in the simulation were the need to create a market plan that repostion the Cruiser Thorr in the market versus launching a new motorcycle, and plotting the Crusier Thorr brand attributes on a perceptual map. Thorr’s Motorcycles lifestyle image is important to the organization because it influences customers to purchase the top selling product of a Cruiser Thorr. The image of the Cruiser Thorr represents, mobility, freedom, and most of all for the majority of motorcycle riders, masculinity. The...
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...Using Perceptual Maps in Marketing MKT/421 May 9, 2012 University of Phoenix Thorr motorcycles are a 5.5 billion dollar company that produces more than 200,000 units annually. The Thorr Company licensed dealers to sell t-shirts, leather goods, and toys. The Thorr motorcycle company recently saw a decline in the Thorr cruiser that in the past has been the company’s top-selling cruiser. Sale declines are attributed to target age groups no longer taking interest in the lifestyle that the Thorr cruiser portrays and also a younger group of customers. There are main three objectives of this simulation that will be addressed. The first Task and objective was to identify the appropriate parameters and complete the perceptual map. The second task and objective was to create an effective marketing plan with an budget of $13 Million dollars and the decision whether to launch a new product or reposition the company altogether together. The final objective was to identify the parameter values that would take the company into the future. The first objective was determining the perceptual map parameters. The map will show a realistic visual of how consumers feel about the products and services being offered. There were four parameters chosen and the chosen parameters were lifestyle image, quality engineering, service offering, and price. The parameters chosen were chosen because they were the most important aspects of marketing located in the simulation. The lifestyle image...
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...Perceptual Maps Marketing MKT/421 Perceptual Maps Phase 1 – Description – Where is the Thunder? In this phase the marketing manager, SARA needs to reverse the latest trends in the market with a new marketing plan. Before doing so, she needs to know and understand where Cruiser Thorr’s position in the market. SARA needs to choose the four fundamental parameters that are most relevant to the motorcycle industry and that reflect the highest potential for Cruiser Thorr. Phase 1 – Recommended Solutions SARA chose the following four parameters in the simulation: • Service Offerings • Price • Engine Capacity • Safety SARA chose these four parameters because, according to the market research ratings, Cruiser Thorr scored very low ratings in these categories. Cruiser Thorr is already strong in the other parameters and to be the best, Cruiser Thorr needs to improve their weakest attributes in the business. Her intention is to better the weakest links of Cruiser Thorr. Service Offerings are an easy way to keep our consumers interested once a purchase has been made. A competitive price allows our consumer market to expand. Engine Capacity is important in the motorcycle industry and “usually, the bigger the engine, the higher the brand image” (University of Phoenix Student website, 2012, Phase 1). Safety is important because we want the trust of our consumers and want to keep them as safe as possible. Results and recommendation from the simulation. The simulation stated...
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...strategy for Cruiser Thorr by changing the market mix at the Price, Place, Promotion and Services levels. My Performances: Marketing Mix, Lifestyle, price, service offering and quality engineering. - Repositioning, financial options- price parameter, increasing service My Decisions: Maintaining price- Publicize through Hollywood Films- Internet (manufacturer's Web Site), Financial Service and Customization Options, A. For each of the three major phases in the simulation, describe: 1) The situation 2) Your recommended solution(s), including why 3) Your results B. Summarize the different marketing components addressed in this simulation by answering the following questions: 1) What is the relationship between differentiation and positioning of products or services? Is the repositioning of the product in the simulation as you had expected it to be? Why or why not? Simulation Paper 3 Running head: Simulation Paper 2) What is the impact of the product life cycle on marketing? What impact did the product life-cycle have on the product in the simulation? A. For the first major phase is to identify the parameters that are relevant to Thorr Cruiser. The first parameter is that of the extent of contemporariness of Thorr Cruiser. Thorr Cruiser is not perceived to be modern, apart from the old; there are few people that want to purchase Thorr Cruiser. So the parameter of contemporariness has been identified as important for Thorr Cruiser...
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