Carolyn Watson
Carolyn Watson
November 2, 2014
Week 3: Written Assignment #5
What Should We Call It?
What recommendation would you make as to how to label the warranty in marketing campaign? Why?
According to GM research, drivers in Britain only drive about 8,200 miles a year, meaning that the 100,000 mile limit would last approximately 12 years. The GM research also concluded that approximately 95% of car owners in Britain don’t use their cars for more than ten years which gives them the ability to argue that their warranty can be labeled as a “lifetime” warranty. Since the majority of Britain’s car owners will never use their cars long enough to actually find out that their warranty really is a “limited” warranty, instead of a “lifetime” warranty (Reed, 2010).
However, as a marketing manager at GM whose head is full of great ideas about how to take advantage of our new warranty and use it to sell more cars. I am also very concerned about whether, and maybe even when, consumers will get angry about being misled. Since this managerial decision could ultimately affect our organization overall performance and its public image when these misled consumers begin to voice their complaints to the media.
In view of that, I would like to recommend that our organization make the ethical decision and properly label the new warranty as “100,000 Mile” warranty, rather than labeling it as the “lifetime” warranty for a variety of reasons. For instance, if our organization decides to implement a “lifetime” warranty we can expect to begin to experience a large number of complaints from the 5% of car owners - who love their cars so much that they decided to keep them past the ten to twelve year mark period – whose vehicles are experiencing a number of problems and are well over the 100,000 mile mark in approximately 12 to 15 years. At which time, our sales representatives will have to inform millions of car owners that their cars are no longer under warranty because they have reached their
November 2, 2014
Week 3: Written Assignment #5
What Should We Call It?
What recommendation would you make as to how to label the warranty in marketing campaign? Why?
According to GM research, drivers in Britain only drive about 8,200 miles a year, meaning that the 100,000 mile limit would last approximately 12 years. The GM research also concluded that approximately 95% of car owners in Britain don’t use their cars for more than ten years which gives them the ability to argue that their warranty can be labeled as a “lifetime” warranty. Since the majority of Britain’s car owners will never use their cars long enough to actually find out that their warranty really is a “limited” warranty, instead of a “lifetime” warranty (Reed, 2010).
However, as a marketing manager at GM whose head is full of great ideas about how to take advantage of our new warranty and use it to sell more cars. I am also very concerned about whether, and maybe even when, consumers will get angry about being misled. Since this managerial decision could ultimately affect our organization overall performance and its public image when these misled consumers begin to voice their complaints to the media.
In view of that, I would like to recommend that our organization make the ethical decision and properly label the new warranty as “100,000 Mile” warranty, rather than labeling it as the “lifetime” warranty for a variety of reasons. For instance, if our organization decides to implement a “lifetime” warranty we can expect to begin to experience a large number of complaints from the 5% of car owners - who love their cars so much that they decided to keep them past the ten to twelve year mark period – whose vehicles are experiencing a number of problems and are well over the 100,000 mile mark in approximately 12 to 15 years. At which time, our sales representatives will have to inform millions of car owners that their cars are no longer under warranty because they have reached their