Biggest Mistake By Tata Company - Tata Nano Car

Introduction

The Tata Nano is a city car manufactured by Tata motors. This car made and sold in India, the nano car was initially launched with a price of Rs 100,000 or $1,500. It is the cheapest car in the world. Even though it is an engineering feat to package the entire car within that price range, it sales largely failed, primarily due to its marketing campaign.

These cars designed to lure India's burgeoning middle classes away from two-wheelers, it received much publicity. It's current price point means the claim "World's cheapest Car" remains true today.

The Marketing Strategy

Owning a car in India is a big thing. It is more of a social status symbol!

In order to capture this market segment Ratan Tata announced the concept of Tata Nano Car in 2006. The concept of introducing a cheapest car for every middle class family in India. Everyone got fascinated by the Idea. But unfortunately the fascination did not transpire into sales!

What Went Wrong With Tata Nano Car

The idea of promoting Nano as the 'cheapest' car!

Announced as the most affordable production car in the world. Tata aimed for a price of one lakh rupees, which was approximately $2,000 US at the time. Only the very first customers were able to purchase the car at that price, however and as of 2012, the price for the basic Nano is around Rs 150,000. Increasing material cost may be to blame for this rapid rise in price.

Considering the society we live in today, one would not want to own the 'cheapest' car in the world.

"Dude he owns a car, and that too the cheapest one! Lol! (Can't afford to buy a car, hence bought Nano!)

And that mentality is what made people to rethink before booking nano. Once on a stage, when a student asked Ratan Tata regarding the failure of Tata Nano, he acknowledged that the mistake was branding the model as the cheapest car instead of affordable car; people did not want to associated with a cheap car.

One of the best possible campaign they could have run to market Nano was to promote it as 'Your first car!', with the target audience being the youth and working professionals!

Anyway, the Tatas are stills trying hard to push Nano on the roads, it will be tough!

Certainly a big mistake committed by Tata Motors!

Cheers!