MKT20025 Consumer Behaviour Assignment 2: Business Report Brief Sem 2, 2025-26

MKT20025 Assignment 2 Brief

ASSIGNMENT 2: Business Report - 40% (2500-2800 words)

Influencing Consumer Behaviour - Electric Vehicles (EVs)

TASK: Apply your knowledge of the internal factors that influence consumer behaviour in the purchase of an electric vehicle to evaluate the current Marketing efforts of a company and to inform them of improved Marketing strategies

Electric vehicles (EVs) are set to become the new driving norm as reducing carbon emissions becomes a globally urgent requirement. Numerous car companies have developed hybrid cars, while Tesla surged ahead with a fully electric luxury car range. Since then, many new players have entered the market and in Australia, Hyundai's Kona is the first electric SUV in the country, and loniq is its sedan. Similarly, Nissan have developed Leaf and Renault has developed Zoe, although Toyota is choosing to pursue a hydrogen rather than electric car in Australia, the Mirai. With electric car sales highest in Victoria (www.budgetdirect.com.au), and a growing acceptance across the nation, there is an opportunity for a non-Tesla brand to dominate. Knowledge about the internal factors that influence people when making purchasing decisions, and adopting sustainability practices, such as those learned in the study of Consumer Behaviour, should provide insight for the development of Marketing strategies to encourage the purchase and usage of EVs.

Your task

Select one company and one of its electric vehicle brands to be your 'client' (that is not Tesla!). As a marketing consultant, you have been commissioned by this company to develop marketing strategies which will accelerate the uptake of the company's EV. To do so, you will apply your expert knowledge of consumer behaviour and internal influencing factors to explain how each factor might work in influencing the purchase decision of an EV. This analysis will inform the development of marketing strategies that you recommend the company adopts. Note that car sales or lease are viable outcomes for the company.

Your report should be written at a professional level as though it was for a real client.

As for any business, it is important to first identify the segment most attractive for the EV company to target. Accordingly, you will need to:

1. Segment the market and select the most appealing segment to target for the chosen brand. Create a persona for the target market.
2. Explain the internal factors that influence purchasing, and apply them to the purchasing of an EV. Explain how your analysis informs 'ideal' Marketing strategies.
3. Evaluate the current Marketing strategies of the company - compare that with the 'ideal' approach you identified from your analysis to reveal 'gaps' in their current strategy.
4. Provide recommendations for marketing strategies the company should adopt (noting these must be in addition to, or replace, any that are currently being implemented) that reflect a sound knowledge of how the internal factors affect consumer decisions.

In detail, you need to produce a well-articulated, succinct business-style report that contains:

• Cover Page (Title and name, date etc)
• Executive Summary (no more than 1 page)
  Table of Contents (no more than 1 page)
• Introduction and background: provide the purpose of the report, who it is for and from, industry background information (industry sales, client and main competitors' market share, other relevant stats), the framework that will be followed and the scope.
• Segmentation: introduce segmenting, segment the market via a table, evaluate the segments via a table, choose a target market (a group of people you plan to target).

Persona: you then need to create a persona for the target market. Return to week one lecture bites for a refresher of personas and how to develop them.

Internal factors: Select and discuss 2 (of 5) internal influencing factors on consumer behaviour, drawing upon a single, relevant theory within the factor, and apply them to the purchase of EVs for your target market (needs and motivation, personality, perception and self-concept, attitudes, learning).

Evaluation: be sure to include in your discussion an evaluation of the company's current marketing strategies for this product.

To do so, you will need to:

1. Suggest the 'ideal' approach to apply the analysis of the theory. For example, your discussion of 'perception' may reveal how Gestalt principles (a theory within 'perception') influence perception, and in arguing that it is relevant for the purchase decisions of EVs, suggest it could be a good approach to heighten perception.
2. Evaluate the current Marketing strategies in terms of whether their strategies seem to apply knowledge of these factors well, or not - for example, do they seem to have applied Gestalt in their current Marketing efforts?
3. Identify a 'gap' or 'shortfall' in their current Marketing strategies. This can then be filled by your new recommendations which you will present in the NEXT section.

Recommendations: drawing from your analysis, provide two sound Marketing recommendations for your client to implement that you feel will best bring about an increase in sales or leasing of its EV brand, that reflect a sound knowledge of how the internal factors affect consumer decisions. Be sure to include four components for each recommendation: 1) a brief statement of the recommendation; 2) a brief explanation of your idea; 3) a justification for the recommendation from earlier analysis; 4) sufficient details so it could be implemented by the company.

• A brief conclusion
  Full reference list (note that a minimum number of journal articles are needed for each grade point-see rubric).
• Appendices if required (note: these should be supplementary reading only and not form a substantive part of your report)
  Be sure to review the assessment rubric to optimise the best way to approach these sections.