Friday, April 11, 2008

The new Sumo Grande

TATA has been launching and re-launching its one of the most successfull brands of all time-The TATA Sumo.It was launched as Sumo in the beginning followed by a relaunch under the name Sumo-Deluxe.Then came the Sumo Spacio and now the all new Sumo Grande.There are other variants in this category like the Gx,Vx etc.Grande is priced some where around Rs 7.5 lacs!!!It seems that the company plans to compete with other similar jeeps like the Scorpio,Tavera etc in the market.
However don't you think that they should have launched it under a new brand name?Sumo was famous for its huge space and the sturdiness it offered alongwith a market winner being the price advantage.Now if you launch another vehicle with the same name(just another variant) and price it so high wouldn't it affect your sales as well as the brand???It defeats the very pupose of the original Sumo.
Whats your opinion???

6 comments:

  1. nice thought!!!!
    Scorpio ranges from 7.4 to 8.8 n tavera too from 7-9lacs..so Tata have priced it competitively in range of 6.6 to 7.5...they have positioned it as a family car wit SUV features...they already had a built up Brand Equity from Sumo n they wanted to capitalize it..so no isssues from that end..the Parent Brand "Tata" itself is strong enough...they have rightly pointed out tat it is an advanced version of sumo..wit more finished look wit advanced technolgy n engine!!!!!!

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  2. Yes thats right and accepted.But dont you think that instead of capitalising on "SUMO" as a brand they should have gone in for "TATA" as a brand.For obvious reasons that TATA is a bigger brand.If one was to position its product in an up-market segment they have to care of the sentiments of people in that segment too.Remember what happened to Mitsubishi-Lancer.In the beginning they were just Lancer with its variants,then followed all the models,for eg Cedia.It was a big flop in India and I see that happening with TATA Grande too.

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  3. Hi sarvesh...nice article..:)

    Dont you think the launch of new SUMO GRANDE might affect TATA's another SUV TATA SAFARI
    ...its conflicting its own product sales...

    From few sources i got the information that Alrdy the launch of TATA SUMO Grande did affect the sales of TATA Safari.....wat do you think abt this :)?????

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  4. well firstly both safari and sumo are two completely different cars.
    there is a basic difference between the two which is that safari is meant basically for of road purpose and sumo is meant for the passenger travel. now sumo grande is the old sumo with luxury features of the high price SUV.
    thus the prices are a bit high.
    but then the features are also like wise.
    if a person is not intrested in these luxury features he always has an option of the SUMO VICTA Di.

    TATA Motors basically believes in catering to all the segment needs of the people. and we can see that with all their products.

    Thus i feel that the new sumo grande is a different vehicle and there is no prob.
    now u might say that why keep the same name. well why not.
    its on the same platform and basically passenger travel. then we might as well keep it the same way.
    this way we can save a lot of time and resources on launch of a new brand and also getting the new brand across to all the people.

    Take care
    GOD BLESS.

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  5. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  6. Hi Sunny

    Sorry the earlier post wasnt correct...So...
    The problem here is not catering to all customer segments.Definitely TATA does cater to almost all segments except the Executive class!!!We are looking at a deeper point.Here the question moves on to managing a brand rather than worrying about the sales.If we have a look at the target segment of Safari it was completely different than that of the old sumo.Moreover the brand name of Safari has also been built up in the same way unlike the all sturdy Sumo.

    When you position your brand in a top segment you have to look into all the aspects including carrying on the same name or not.As far as the resources spent on new brand launch are concerned I don't really think that TATA has spent any less for Grandes launch.However the conflicting idea of a passenger car into a luxury segment can be explained as...think of an Audi A-4 with lesser variants than the normal Audi and priced at Rs 5 lakhs.The normal A-4 sales will be hit crazily as people in a luxury segment would not like the same name of their car to be given to a cheap sedan owned by half the population.

    However these are my personal views
    and this what I strongly feel.Your explanation about branding according to me is by far alright but there has to be some insight about the positioning as well and managing the brand.
    TATA is trying hard to manage their Sumo brand as well as compete with other players in a top segment with a brand name of a lower segment-again a confused strategy!!!

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