Mercedes Benz Leadership Model

Introduction

Mercedes-Benz is one of the world’s best-known car brands. It is a market leader in key markets including Germany and other European countries (Ciravegna, 2012). This leadership position has been held for a long period and has contributed immensely to the company’s share within the European market. The company has positioned itself as a luxurious model suitable for clientele looking for a combination of high quality and prestige (Mercedes Benz, 2014). Globalization, however, is increasingly posing a threat on Mercedes-Benz’s leadership position. Although the brand is still coping extremely well in Germany and a number of European markets, it is not comparable competitive in emerging markets such as China (J. P. Morgan, 2014).

Kotler pays high importance to the factor “culture” in his “Model of Buyer Behavior” (Sahney, 2013). Unlike the Western consumption culture, Chinese have a culture that tends to be emphatic of luxury. Literature allows the assumption that in fact it seems significantly easier for luxury brands to be sold in China than ordinary brands (Tsai, 2005). This is something that most auto marketers in China seem to have failed to understand; and in turn has evidentially negatively affected their brand penetration and total sales in the country (Li, Lai, Kline, & Wang,

Literature explains that during Keller´s determined steps the brand identifies who it is and who its customers are which can be linked to the researchers study´s importance. Moreover, the brand needs to identify their customers purchase behavior and how they differentiate the brand from its competitors due to how they perceive the different brands (Goyal, 2013). In alignment Aaker affirms, that Branding and the concept of brand equity however have become increasingly important in industrial markets where it has been shown that what a brand means to a buyer can be a determining factor in deciding among purchase alternatives (Alpert & Kuhn,