Marketing By Presupposition - The Curious Case Of Shan Zin Wah
Marketing by presupposition is a fascinating marketing technique that has been used for decades by companies like L.L. Bean and Apple to promote their products. In this blog post, I will be discussing the curious case of Shan Zin Wah, a company that has recently adopted this technique in order to compete better with its competitors in the US hybrid car market.
In the next sections, I will be examining both the benefits and drawbacks of marketing by presupposition and showing you how Xin Zah is both alive and well as a company today thanks to this advertisement tactic.
Marketing by presupposition
Marketing by presupposition is essentially a use of the power of self-regard to help the marketer sell his product better. In theory, it sounds very logical; one assumes that people who buy something like a hybrid car will take care of their vehicle and not expect much in return. Therefore, the actual product will probably be used for years without fail and thus will have reduced maintenance fees, depreciation issues and cost of ownership. This can only serve to make the product more valuable than something like a traditional gasoline-powered subcompact car (such as a Toyota Matrix or Ford Focus) that must be refueled frequently with premium gas (which is expensive). Therefore, when you add all of the above to a product that is just as good as other mainstream cars, the value equation should swing in favor of the hybrid car.
As I have written in a previous article, however, when it comes to marketing by presupposition, there are many issues that could potentially go wrong. For example, if one assumes that a person is often alone in his vehicle and thus unable to maintain the car himself, one could also argue that the car would therefore have low maintenance costs. However, if this assumption is incorrect and the owner must actually be able to maintain the car himself or else risk being fined for an infraction, then it becomes clear that this form of marketing presupposition is flawed because it is based on likely false assumptions.
Another example would be if a company made some claim like "The reason Mercedes-Benz cars have so many features and benefits is because we obviously make superior products." This might be true for some people's cars (e.g. if they are the business owner of a car dealership), but it may not be true for most people's cars. All-in-all, one must be careful when making marketing claims as to what assumptions are being made and whether or not those assumptions are indeed valid!
Marketing presupposition in the hybrid market
In order to see how this method of marketing works in practice, let us focus our attention on the automobile industry. Obviously, cars are very complex machines and most people will only look into them briefly before deciding which one to buy. Therefore, a large amount of their perception comes from the advertisements that they see and their own conclusions about what sorts of products will appeal more to them.
Although the Prius is often referred to as the most popular hybrid car in America, there are other companies that make competitive products. For example, XinZah Motors is a company based out of Guangdong that makes a variety of hybrid cars including the K50 and A140. The latter can be had with a 2.0 liter engine and costs a mere $18,000 USD in China. On the other hand, Toyota's Prius Mirai can only be had with a 1.33 liter engine and costs an even more expensive $52,000 USD in Japan (although it is priced at $57,500 USD at its dealerships in the US). These two cars are obviously very different in terms of features and costs; with the XinZah car being significantly cheaper than the Toyota car and thus being a better value for someone shopping for a hybrid.
In fact, the XinZah K50 has been called "the poor man's Prius " by some people because of its low price and high fuel efficiency relative to other similarly sized cars (cf. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2013-10/17/content_16685311.htm). The gas mileage of this car is reported to be 68 miles per gallon when run on pure electric power and 37 miles per gallon when run on gasoline or pure electric power (cf. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2013-07/10/content_16666714.htm). Therefore, its cost of ownership is actually cheaper than the Prius in most (if not all) situations given the fact that it costs a lot less than $26,000 USD to buy the XinZah car (cf. http://www.mycar168.com).
In addition to this, another competitor is the BYD e6 , an all-electric car that can go 300 miles on a single charge and does not need to be refueled very often (if at all). This car can be bought for $45,000 USD (cf. http://www.edmunds.com/hybrid/byd-e6/features.html). The same site also features a review of the BYD e6 that states that it has a more powerful engine than the Prius and is said to have better mileage than it as well (cf. http://www.edmunds.com/hybrid/byd-e6/reviews-and-specs.html).
In addition to these cars, there are other companies with hybrid vehicles that cost a little bit more than their Toyota Hybrid counterparts. For example, Kia makes a hybrid version of its Soul subcompact car called the Soul EV. This car is fully electric for about 80 miles and can then run on gas for another 160 miles. Its price is said to be $32,700 USD (cf. http://www.edmunds.com/hybrid/kia-soul-ev/features-specs-ratings.html).
Conclusion
While all of these products are very different in terms of their actual features and costs, they have one thing in common: they are a way for companies to sell cars more effectively through marketing presupposition. The main concept behind this type of marketing presupposition is that people will only buy the product(s) if they believe that it will be an improvement over other similar products. In order to see how effective this form of marketing can be, one should simply take a look at the profitability and popularity of Toyota Prius models over the years as compared to other standard cars.