Brand Management of Luxury Goods: Mercedes and BMW

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2009 in the subject Business economics - Offline Marketing and Online Marketing, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, course: Business Administration, language: English, abstract: The brand is different to a product. It is something that exists much longer than the product itself. The luxury brand symbolizes exclusivity and uniqueness through its limited number of selling products. For example a car directly makes visible the income, the standing and the status of the owner. This study is focused on understanding the concept of 'luxury' in the choice of cars in Germany. Therefore it has a closer look at the luxury brands and the luxury customer. The author researches and analyses the concept of 'luxury' in the choice of car brands with a closer look at BMW and Mercedes in Germany. The author has chosen these two brands, because they are the most luxurious German brands and represent best the model of luxury brands. They are also well known in the German market and therefore the best convenient luxury brands for market research. In order to be able to answer the objectives and the research question the author uses quantitative research with the help of questionnaires sent to a number of German business students. The results show that luxury is important for the majority of the respondents and that status is relevant for them. Moreover they included luxury and status in the purchase of a car. The results of the survey suggest that the attribute of premium quality defines best luxury. It became clear throughout the primary research that almost all saw the car brands BMW and Mercedes as luxury brands. In their view the two brands include all the benefits a luxury brand should include like image, technology and expertly built.