Dacia case study

I) Introduction

The DACIA brand was created in 1996 in Romania where a license agreement was signed with the French brand RENAULT. DACIA's mission is to provide modern, family-friendly and robust cars to all Romanians.

The flagship model of the Romanian manufacturer is the Dacia 1310, known simply as Dacia, which is an improved and better calibrated version of the Renault 12, without any major technological additions.

In 1999, RENAULT bought DACIA and became a brand of the Renault group. Renault radically modernised the historic factory in Pitesti and a breakthrough was achieved in terms of quality. The difficult Romanian climate, the poor road conditions and the long distances through the Carpathian Mountains demand exemplary reliability from the vehicles.

In 2004, DACIA launched the "Logan" family sedan, which becomes the symbol of the brand's revival. The following year, all production records are broken. This is followed by an expansion of the range with Logan MCV (Estate) in 2006, Logan Van in 2007, Logan Pick up and Sandero in 2008, Duster in 2010.

In 2011, DACIA gained over 340,000 new customers in one year.

The Romanian plant in Pitesti is running at full capacity and the Somaca plant in Morocco is added to the historic Pitesti plant.

In 2019, DACIA is experiencing record sales with a turnover of 5 billion euros. With more than 16,000 employees in its group.

II) Segmentation – Targeting - Positioning

To begin with, the brand's missions are clearly defined on its website:

• "Dacia's goal is the production of robust, reliable and accessible vehicles for Romanian and foreign customers, at Renault quality standards."

• "We make the new car accessible".

SEGMENTATION

First, segmentation concerns the diversity of the needs of a company's target. We are therefore interested in the demand. And for the segmentation to be precise, it is necessary to divide the market into homogeneous subsets (core target), i.e. customers who have similar consumption habits and expectations.

For a car, the advantages can be:

• Performance: cars that reach maximum speeds, such as sports cars, ...

• Economy: cars with a low price or with low fuel consumption.

• Practicality/utility: cars that are as spacious as possible, for the whole family, ...

• Image / luxury: cars that give value, that give the best image and that represent symbols of

social success.

The more we analyse the Dacia brand, the more we see that the advantage sought in priority is clearly the economic side (low-cost). This is particularly what is underlined in the brand's communication policy. Thus, the main segmentation criterion of the brand is taxed on the socio-professional categories with limited income.

Therefore, here are some specific criteria for Dacia:

2

Geographical:

• Dacia sells about 550,000 cars in Europe. Such as France, Italy, Poland, United Kingdom, Romania, Bulgaria, ...

• Dacia is also present in the Maghreb region: Morocco, Israel, ...

• Finally, hundreds of thousands of Dacia cars are also sold under the Renault name in markets

outside Europe, including Latin America, Russia, Africa and the Middle East.

Afterwards, criteria such as age is not an important criteria for Dacia, as opposed to the top of the range. Thus, the criteria retained are:

Psychological:

• Lifestyle: the customer is looking for comfort, an economical car, maybe hybrid and with an affordable price, ...

• Values: The brand values are built around a limited range, corresponding well to the current trend. Indeed, customers are looking for simplicity, the principle of "smart" purchase, reliability, which are criteria that are part of Dacia's DNA. Dacia's customers buy cars in a different way and see their purchase as something useful in the first place.

And let's not forget the ecological aspect, which is an important criteria for consumers and which we find at Dacia with its positioning in hybrids.

Behavioural:

The consumer's need is first and foremost a primary need for security. The Dacia consumer is not looking for self-esteem or self-expression, because the customer does not pay for the brand like Porsche for example.

• The expected benefits: quality ratio, return on investment

• Frequency of use: daily use

• Loyalty status: about 55% of Dacia buyers now remain loyal to the brand when they buy

another car. Indeed, Dacia uses a "pull" system and a conquest strategy that attracts

customers to the brand by creating a loyal audience.

• Ready to buy: the purchase of a Dacia is spontaneous and not reflected like the top of the

range, especially because of the price.

• The attitude toward the product: the customer finds the product " surprisingly affordable ".

That is to say, today we see more and more cars becoming heavier, more powerful and more expensive. And Dacia's positioning contradicts these trends, which may be surprising.

TARGETING

Dacia has chosen to practice differentiated marketing since its vehicles are commercialized under different brands depending on the country. Unlike their parent brand Renault, they have not opted for a range brand strategy, but for a product brand strategy. As a result, Dacia offers 4 versions for each of its vehicles: the "basic" version, the "Ambiance" version, the "Lauréate" version and the "Prestige" version. The differences between these versions are the number and type of standard equipment and the number and type of options available. It has therefore chosen to adapt to the different desires of its customers and has, for example,

...