I am sure you will look at a Tata Nano with the same feeling of rejection what you had almost ten years back…nothing changed. As the last unit of Tata Nano has been produced in Sanand Factory, Gujurat the same question of rejection surfaces again. Ask the common man, you will be surprised to know the reasons of rejection.
1. Tata Nano was a concept car, a prototype of it’s kind. But it remained as a concept car till the last unit, couldn’t come out of that tag of concept or experiment.
2. There was a hype, promotion in media. It was a promotional success, yet the product was less emphatic. Had there been a low profilepromotion and publicity, Nano could have got a slow but steady start. The fast and furious promotion killed the product with over exposure and over analysis.
3. The common man never wanted a car of less than 1 lakh…Did he ask for a car. Probably he wanted a better product in society than in his family. So he respected the concept of a car with possession and passion. Nano was neither fit for possession or passion.
4. Ratan Tata and Cyrus Mystry saga brings back the point of strategic decision making and strategic alliance. But Nano was not fit for any replacement and even not fit for auto aggrigators.
5. The name “Nano”was not a wise choice. It could have been “Tata Transformer”… It should have the power to transform the common to acceptable…rather it made the accepatble more common. The initial hype and booking belonged to the class not the mass.
Whatever may be the reason…It is fact that marketing of Tata Nano was a case of Marketing Myopia. There was over emphasis on product, narrowly defined Research and Development, lack of socio-cultural understanding of Indian consumers expections over a specialty product and so many publicity stunts.
This is a case of Tata’s desire to transform the business but they were destined to be transformed…
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