About TeslaTesla Motor, head office located at PaloAlto, in the Silicon Valley, was founded in 2003 by Martin Eberhard and MarcTarpenning to solve a real problem i.e. dependence on oil. The company led thefirst round of investments in 2004 where 3 investors joined in namely IanWright, JB Straubel and Elon Musk (who is the CEO and principal investor in thecompany).The company was named in honor of NikolaTesla, the Serbian inventor and engineer who developed the first alternatingcurrent (AC) motor. It is the main anchor of the electric car industry and notonly builds all electric vehicles but also focuses on infinitely scalable andclean energy generation and storage products.The company has its manufacturing andassembling operations at facility located at Fermont, California; Lathrop,California; and Tilburg, Netherlands. The company has also built a cell andbattery manufacturing facility, Gigafactory 1, outside of Reno, Nevada. As perthe present plans of the company it continues to expand its product line alongwith production plan at a rate of 500,000 vehicles a year by 2018.MarketingLocal marketing strategies of TeslaAs one of its strategies to attractcustomers in the foreign market, Tesla customizes its cars to meet local needsand to satisfy the tastes and preferences of its customers. For example, inresponse to customer feedback, Tesla made some modifications to its Tesla ModelS in China, including an ‘executive rear seat’ option, which costs $2000 overthe standard model and aims to make the rear seat experience more comfortable (O’Hara 2015).Excerpts from Tesla 10K:“Historically, we have been able to generate significant media coverage of our company and our vehicles, and we believe we will continue to do so. To date, for vehicle sales, media coverage and word of mouth have been the primary drivers of our sales leads and have helped us achieve sales without traditional advertising and at relatively low marketing costs.”International marketing strategies ofTesla:Direct Selling:Tesla sells its cars directly to its consumers through an international network of company-owned stores & galleries. This benefits the company to better control costs of inventory, manage warranty servicing and pricing, maintain and strengthen the Tesla brand through obtaining customer feedback.Used cars sales program:The company used car business supportsnew car sales by integrating the sale of a new Tesla vehicle with a customer’strade-in needs for their existing Tesla and non-Tesla vehicles. These acquiredvehicles are remarketed primarily to general public and also in auction.Strategic positioning of stores & galleries:Another strategy employed by Tesla inthe foreign market is deliberately positioning its stores and galleries in highfoot traffic, high visibility retail venues, like malls and shopping streetsthat people regularly visit in a relatively open-minded buying mood (Musk2012). This approach is to, as Musk (2012) states, “reach people before theymake a decision on a new car.” Super Charging stations:The company has built their supercharging network throughout North America, Europe, Asia and other markets toenable convenient & long distance travel. The supercharger network is astrategic corporate initiative designed to provide fast charging to enablelong-distance travel and remove a barrier to the broader adoption of electricvehicles caused by the perception of limited vehicle range. The TeslaSupercharger is an industrial grade, high speed charger designed to recharge aTesla vehicle significantly more quickly than other charging options. Tosatisfy growing demand, Supercharger stations typically have between six andtwenty Superchargers and are strategically placed along well-travelled routesto allow Tesla vehicle owners the ability to enjoy long distance travel withconvenient, minimal stops. Additionally, they are also building Superchargersin an increasing number of city centers to enable urban use. Use of theSupercharger network is either free or requires a small fee. Principles of sustainable marketing:Sustainable marketing also referred toas green marketing is socially and environmentally responsible marketing thatmeets the present needs of consumers and business while also preserving orenhancing the ability of future generations to meet their needs.There are five sustainable marketingprinciples:Consumer oriented marketing: aprinciple of sustainable marketing that holds a company should view &organize its marketing activities from the consumer’s point of view.The marketing process strikingly points out the importance to orient one’s business to the customer needs and to create appropriate values. Thus, satisfaction of customers needs by meeting their expectations on performance and quality fortifies a profitable long-term relationship to the customer. Below figure represents the profit chainof customer orientation: –A lot of research focuses on the validation of customer orientation, the links between the relative concepts (i.a. Anderson, Fornell and Lehmann 1994; Appiah-Adu and Singh 1998; Brady and Cronin 2001a; Brockman, Jones and Becherer 2012) and the drivers of customer orientation (i.a.Strong and Harris 2004). Johnson (1997) translates the underlying core conceptsof marketing into three sequential goals of customer orientation. First, one needs to acquire informationon the customer needs and establish the extent to which they are currentlyserved. Next, these gathered insights must bespread throughout the organization and transformed into actions, which are subsequentlyimplemented in a third step in order to satisfy the customer’s needs. In sum, understanding customers’ needsis the first and essential step to long-term economic success.Customer value marketing: a principle of sustainablemarketing that holds a company should put most of its resources into consumervalue building marketing investments.The customer value refers to currentvalue of complete profit obtained from these customers through the maintainablebusiness relation of these customers. The study of this theory is completed asenterprises continually seek competitive advantage and the related theoryformed and developed on the basis of reference summary. Since 1990s, thecustomer value (Customer Value, CV) has become the focal point which thewestern marketing scholars and entrepreneurs pay attention to together, and isregarded as the new origin of competitive advantages.As the economic globalization becomesthe mainstream in nowadays, it is extremely important that the marketingstrategies must be getting stronger when faced with the increasingly intensemarket competition. In the process of marketing, customer is the source ofenterprises profits and the key to business success, especially in the era ofthe buyer’s market, who owns customers, is equal to having profit. Customersegmentation enables organizations to design different marketing strategies fordifferent customers, and applies its superior resources to high valuecustomers, mines customers’ potential value, and increases customers’satisfaction, realizes customers’ loyalty. Innovative marketing: a principle of sustainablemarketing that requires a company to seek real product & marketingimprovements.Market competition acceleratestechnological progress and innovation in all areas to meet customer needs. Italso includes product innovations aimed at increasing customer interest throughinnovative marketing tools. From a microeconomic perspective the customersatisfaction can be understood as a factor of product competitiveness valuationthat can satisfy customer needs. Economists became interested in theissue of customer satisfaction in the 1980s, under the influence of the economyinternationalization, globalization and innovations generation. Thepossibilities to enhance the company competitiveness through the satisfactionof customers’ requirements began to be explored. Customer satisfaction with theproduct is neither objective nor absolute value. It is important to look fornew opportunities and innovations to help the product to create customer needsthat are considered as satisfactory by a customerBusiness environment constantly facesnew challenges that require companies to react promptly as fast as they can.Innovativeness is evident in all parts of marketing, as well as in marketingcommunication. Companies constantly search for tools that seem to be moreeffective in the relation with their customers. Appropriately chosen forms ofmarketing communication are effective in addressing more customers, gettingtheir attention, their confidence to buy a product and keeping the customers´loyalty. Companies are using more or lesstraditional marketing communication tools that are also called “outboundmarketing” and “inbound marketing”. New trends require companies to applymarketing communication tools which involve the customer in the communicationthat enables the instant feedback. Thus, the customer feels to be theinseparable part of the sales process. This is also the way how to reduce thecommunication costs and to achieve better communication and marketingobjectives. Sense-of-mission marketing: a principle of sustainablethat holds a company should define its mission in broad social terms ratherthan narrow product terms.This concept has led to a new generationof activist entrepreneurs who are essentially trained business managers with asense of social responsibility and passion for a bigger cause.The most popular example of this wouldbe of the Dove Campaign.  After a research conducted by Unilever whichrevealed that only 2% of the 3300 women and girls surveyed across the worldfelt that they were beautiful, Unilever decided to redefine the concept ofbeauty.The underlying mission of this campaignwas to discover “Real beauty” and to help women be happy with the way they are.The advertisement contained confident and bold women of all types instead ofregular models to echo the message of “normal is the new beautiful”.Societal marketing: a principle of sustainablemarketing that holds a company should make marketing decisions by consideringconsumers wants, the company’s requirements, consumers and society’s long-terminterests.“The well-being of individuals and society can be achieved by the enhancement of positive consequences associated with production and consumption of a product, as well as the limitation and/or reduction of negative consequences associated with production and consumption of a product. The reduction of negative consequences and enhancement of positive consequences should be complementary in the conceptualization of a societal orientation. To this respect, a societal orientation should be concerned with maximizing positive impact of and minimizing negative effects associated with the production and consumption of a product in order to increase the long-run well-being for consumers and society at large.”Explanation of the case & synthesiswith the theory:Consumer oriented marketing: Tesla hasconsumer-oriented marketingThe company has a traditional marketingchannel of direct selling and promotes primarily through media coverage &word of mouth. These drivers have helped them reduce their marketing cost alongwith spreading a word of trust to boost their sales in the EV market segment.The company through its owned stores interacts directly with customers keepingin view of their feedback and focuses on customer satisfaction.Tesla also maintains low inventory andand offers customization in accordance with the customer’s needs &preferences via the internet.Customer value marketing: Tesla lackscustomer value marketingAlthough Tesla focuses on customersatisfaction but there is an unclear vision through which it operates. Thecompany is not driven by profitability but from a perspective to eradicate theusage of fossil fuels. The dependency of customers to charge their vehicles forlong route is still a question of scalability from Tesla’s point of view. Thecompetition offers hybrid vehicles which is a good alternative to lower theconsumption of fuel and eradicates the dependency on charging vehicles.Innovative Marketing: Tesla hasinnovative marketingTesla is continuously inventing and innovating its own bar of standards and has been driven by the green technology. As the consumer needs and preferences are changing they are drawn towards these products, which has resulted in increase in sales volume and expansion opportunities. Tesla however, is also focusing on on providing convenience to its customers along with infinite supply of better technology.Sense-of-mission marketing: Tesla hassense-of-mission marketingTesla has a broad mission which is toaccelerate the world transition to sustainable energy. Tesla is also makingcontinuous efforts to make products more accessible and affordable to more andmore people, ultimately accelerating the advent of clean transport and cleanenergy production.Societal Marketing: Tesla has societalmarketing approachThe company through its products andbusiness offerings keeps society’s long term interest as its primary objective.The customer needs are changing and so is the evolving technology and it is ofprime importance to increase our dependency on alternate fuels and reducedependency on fossil fuels.ReferencesRavald A, Gronroos C. The Value Concept and Relationship Marketing [J]. European Journal of Marketing, 1996 (30): 19-30. Flint D.J, Woodruff, R.B. The Initiators of Changes in Customers’ Desired Value: Results From A Theory Building Study [J]. Industrial Marketing Management, 2001 (30): 321-337. GAO Jie. Customer Value Discovery and Strategy. Economic Forum, 2006, No. 17: 90-91 (in Chinese) HAN Minghua. Based on Customer Value Segmentation Study of the Marketing Resources. Technology and Management, 2009 (1): 81-82 (in Chinese) YI Zhengwei. Based on Customer Value-Oriented Customers Strategic Choice, Business Time, 2011 (18): 40-41 (in Chinese) LIU Qiusheng. ZHANG, Customer Value-Based Corporate Marketing Strategy Research. Business Studies, 2010 (6): 75-78 (in Chinese) HU Xiongbin, Based on Customer Value, Customer Segmentation and Retention Policy Research, Business Time, 2010 (26): 26-28 (in Chinese) LI Jun, China’s Modern Economic Situation Analysis of Marketing Strategies For SMES, Technological Development, 2011 (5): 160-161 (in Chinese) BALTES G., LEIBING I. 2008. Guerilla marketing for information services? [online]. New Library World, 2008 [cit. 2017-10-10], 109(1/2): 46–47. Available online: ?http://www.emeraldinsight. com.ezproxy. bib.hh.se/journals.htm?https://www.johnson.cornell.edu/Portals/32/Blog/Tesla%20Team%203-4-16.pdfhttps://kupdf.net/download/marketing-plan-for-tesla-company_59a05c69dc0d60b51f18496b_pdfhttps://www.researchgate.net/publication/322750674_TESLA_International_Business_StrategiesSocial Marketing: An Approach to Planned Social Change, Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 35, No. 3 (Jul., 1971), pp. 3-12https://www.tesla.com/abouthttp://ir.teslamotors.com/static-files/0fbefe56-326c-412e-a33c-aa1b342e9469https://www.studocu.com/en/document/university-of-newcastle-australia/principles-of-marketing/summaries/chapter-20-sustainable-marketing/1181751/viewhttp://mentalfloss.com/article/66675/10-things-you-may-not-know-about-tesla-motorsGet Help With Your EssayIf you need assistance with writing your essay, our professional essay writing service is here to help!Find out more