Bmw Taps the Emerging Chinese Luxury Market

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(d.) I do not think that later adopters will have different desires and values compared to the 5% of car owners because the 5% has created the “standard” for what consumers want. I believe that the 5% will in fact have more expectations for technological advances and features that BMW and other car companies should release in their products to keep these customers happy.

(# 4 -)

[pic 5] [pic 6]

Rural Adoption Curve Urban Adoption Curve

These two curves depict the different adoption curves, to the left you will find the slow diffusion which would be categorized for the rural adoption curve, it would be slower because for consumers living in rural areas, they are more traditional in the sense that they would rather use traditional modes of transportation rather than cars, not as rich as an urban consumer, and usually more conservative when taking risks which in time would make them slower to adapt to driving cars. Meanwhile, urban consumers are the majority of car buyers in China, due to better paved roads for them to drive on, having more money to spend on cars and willing to change from traditional modes of transportation to cars.

(#5 -

Indeed, BMW and other foreign automakers are adapting their products to better suit the Chinese market, but the question is how much should they adapt before they can lose their originality? Being able to simply customize a certain product in order to adapt it to a specific region or country is smart and efficient marketing. At some point along the line, adapting too much to a region or country’s consumer wants may eliminate the products distinct originality. If BMW decides to for example, change the logo, which would be completely unnecessary, in order to adapt to the Chinese market, then BMW could lose its distinct mark, and a lot of people would simply not buy it because it wouldn’t be a “real BMW”. Although customization is necessary, there is a fine line that should be cut when customizing the features each BMW brings. China has gone up in production of BMWs from 300,000 to 400,000 in the past year also due to the fact that China has more models made for them. In addition, China is starting to develop more electric and hybrid cars due to the traffic jams they face. Manufacturing electric and hybrid cars in China is in no risk of extreme customization because it is simply changing the way the vehicle functions which most car companies are doing regardless of what is happening in China.

Reference Page

Casaburi, I. (2008). CHINA AS A MARKET: LUXURY BRAND CONSUMER BEHAVIOR. Retrieved February 9, 2017, from http://www.marketing-trends-congress.com/archives/2010/Materiali/Paper/Fr/Casaburi.pdf

Hawkins, D. I., & Mothersbaugh, D. L. (2013). Consumer Behavior: Building Marketing Strategy. New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin.

Lexicon. (n.d.). Retrieved February 10, 2017, from http://lexicon.ft.com/Term?term=discontinuous-innovation

Management, V. (2016). Innovation Adoption Curve. Retrieved February 10, 2017, from http://www.valuebasedmanagement.net/methods_rogers_innovation_adoption_curve.html