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Introduction
Marketing communications is an essential part of any company to attract and hold its customers. It is
basically a part of the marketing mix. According to Kotler & Armstrong (2012), the marketing mix is
defined as the 4Ps of marketing: product, price, place and promotion and promotion is what marketing
communications is all about. Promotion or marketing communications are the tools that the company
uses to persuasively and effectively communicate customer value and build relationship with customers.
It is the message that a company uses to carry its products to the market. Today, consumers are surrounded
by many different choices and commercial messages for different sources and to be able to compete and
to get customers’ attention, a company needs effective marketing communication channels and strategies.
This research paper aims to investigate the marketing communication channels that Hyundai use as a
well-known motor company to reach a massive audience around the world. It aims to discuss Hyundai
marketing channel trends and strategies and find out how successful and effective they are in today’s
world. In other words, this paper will help to clarify whether Hyundai’s message is clearly communicated
to all customers and potential customers around the globe especially here is Saudi Arabia or net.
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Background about Hyundai Motor Company
The Hyundai Motor Company is one of the most dynamic automobile producing companies. It is the
largest producing company of cars in South Korea and the fourth largest automobile manufacturers in
the world. It was established in 1967 by one of the most famous businessmen in the history of Korea
called Chung Yong. It has seven manufacturing area outside of South Korea including India ,China, the
Czech Republic, Brazil, Turkey, Russia and the U.S. It has annual about 4.06 million vehicles sold
globally and has a sales network of 6,000 dealerships and showrooms across 189 cities such as Al
Majdouie here in Dammam, Saudi Arabia.
According to Hyundai official website (n.d.), their main vision is to provide value for people future
and their Mission is “To create exceptional automotive value for our customers by harmoniously blending
safety, quality and efficiency. With our diverse team, we will provide responsible stewardship to our
community and environment while achieving stability and security now and for future generations”.
Hyundai focuses its marketing dollars and brand message on two main target markets. Its essential
consumer target is middle to upper class professionals who seek excellent value for their money and
comfortable driving in city conditions. Its secondary consumer target is college students who looking for
stylish design and speed. On the other hand, Hyundai primary business target is medium to large sized
enterprises who want to provide their managers and employees a car for ease of transport. Its secondary
business target is business leaders and small business owners who want to provide special offers to
managers buying a new car (Das, n.d.).
Hyundai Consolidated Financial Statements and Auditors Report for Year 2012 show that Hyundai
spent about 498,262, Korean Won millions equivalent to SR 1,722.02 million on marketing expenses
only to promote its sales and show the world their valuable products (Hyundai Official Website, 2012).
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Literature Review
Marketing communications are essential component that a company must needs to reach its potential
customers. It builds customer’s awareness and encouraging trial. In this research, our purpose is to
understand the marketing communication channels and how we can measure their effectiveness. Then,
we take Hyundai Motor Company as an example and investigate whether its marketing communication
channels and strategies are effective or not by using a number of literature review statements and
hypotheses.
Author of the book Simply Marketing Communications, Chris Fill (2006) described marketing
communications as a “management process through which an organization seeks to engage with its
various audiences”. It is a method used by companies to encourage engagement between the audience of
customers and their product or service. In a basic manner, we can say that marketing managers try to
establish marketing communication channels by developing a series of messages. Then, the marketing
managers present those messages to their different audiences, all in the purpose of positioning or
repositioning the company’s products or services in the minds of their targeted customers. And in turn,
build a relationship with the customers that hold mutual value for both parties (Fill, 2006). So, marketing
communications is a process and this process needs planning of the pricing, promotion and distribution
of goods and service to create value for potential customers. Then exchange this value to fulfill individual
and organizational objectives (De Pelsmacker, Geuens, & Van Den Bergh, 2005).
Now that we understand what marketing communication is, and what marketing manager’s roles are,
we will move on to understanding how marketing communications work. Authors of the book
Foundations of Marketing Communications have stated that predicting how a consumer will respond to
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an advertisement or how they process a communication message is something often hard to achieve (De
Pelsmacker, Geuens, & Van Den Bergh, 2005). The reason behind this is that there are many factors
affecting the consumer’s way of thinking. Factors like the product type, the consumer’s psychology,
culture and social status as well as many other factors impact a consumer’s way of processing
advertisements (Kotler & Armstrong, 2012).
Therefore, to understand how consumers think and react to different advertisements, experts
developed models to help them do so. The hierarchy-of-effects model is one of the oldest models
published on this topic and has dominated the marketing communications literature for decades. In this
model, the consumer is assumed to go through “a hierarchical process of cognitive, affective and
behavioral responses to communications stimuli”. Later on other models with modification evolved
among the most important ones is the cognitively based high elaboration model developed by FishbeinAzjen and the affectively oriented feelings-as-information models. All these models were developed in
the sake of understanding consumer’s behaviors and based upon that communicating with them as
effectively as possible (De Pelsmacker, Geuens, & Van Den Bergh, 2005).
However, the way marketing communications work doesn’t only depend on how marketing experts
understand the consumers. Consumers also take charge of the direction of marketing communications.
This happens with the changing mentality of the consumers over time and the evolving culture that is
affected by the new world’s globalization, media and technology (Blythe, 2006). Based on that,
advertisement channels are chosen by marketing specialists. Those specialists choose the kind of
advertisement based on what people attract to the most. There are many kinds of advertisement channels
such as print advertising, celebrity advertising, outdoor billboards, radio broadcasts, television
commercials, the internet, cellphones and electronic magazine advertising are available today to market
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a product. However, in each era, there is a certain kind of marketing channel that dominates the
advertising field (O'Dell, 2011).
In regards to the old trends of marketing channels, it was stated by Anne Janzer that “old marketing
channels never die”. She included in the article that the top three marketing channels worldwide is the
use of advertising through newspapers, TV advertising and finally the radio. She also emphasized the
importance of updating the use of traditional channels in order to broaden the consumer ranges. New
marketing strategies that come under the social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and online blogging
are the most popular methods of advertising products online. Janzer (2011) stated that using new channels
can magnify the impact of vacant marketing offers. In the late 20th century radio and TV commercials
were most prevalent. Jobber and Fahy (2010) has stated that 67% of the advertising were on TV and
radio which means the majority of companies advertised their products and services using those two
methods. While other types of commercials and advertisements didn’t occur as much such as internet
and cellphone advertisements because they were still not popular, and not as fully developed as now.
However, today with the technological revolution the world has witnessed, the advertisement world
has changed. It became more developed, enhanced, and gained more power and influence over people.
Advertisements are all around us and they are affecting and manipulating us one way or another.
Companies have changed their strategies and found new ways to sell their products and services to
consumers around the world. Companies have come to realize that the interests of people have changed.
In the past, people were interested in TVs and newspapers for example, but not anymore. People today
are more attracted to technology and social media instead of old media. These days almost every one of
us has either a smart phone, large desktop like iPad, iPod…etc., so companies started to reach people
through these new technologies. Therefore, as technology develops, people will accordingly adapt to it
and make it a part of their lives and based on that companies strategies will change (Fill, 2006).
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New technological forces are emerging in rapidly, and all marketing aspects are affected by IT
expansion and progression. Thousands of marketing research studies are currently being conducted by
the use of email. This marketing channel is extremely effective due to the facts that it reduces costs and
saves time. International marketing has, without a doubt, been enhanced by the boom of technology. The
new industry which uses database technologies is called customer relation management (CRM). This
huge database enables companies to receive information about all of the customers; therefore, it improves
the relationship with the customer as well as the supplier. With today’s new and improved technology
marketing channels can be used through two types of communication. The first is mass communication
and the second is direct communication. Social media involves both mass communication as well as
direct communication (Jobber & Fahy, 2010).
In the shade of what we just discussed, we can sense that marketing communications do not follow
any rules and have no rigid format. This uncertainty creates challenges to marketing managers and
specialists because miss-communicating a product’s or service’s message to an audience has a high
possibility of occurring. Author Jim Blythe (2006) categorized these communication failures into 7
categories. One of those categories is distortion of information in which changes in the product’s message
occur because of outside influences. Another category is confusion, where the customer cannot interpret
the company’s message because of the ambiguity of it. Other categories are disruption, implication,
personal, transformation and disagreement, and those all contribute to failure of marketing
communications.
Now that we understand the basics of effective marketing communication, we need to investigate
more and find out about marketing strategies that Hyundai Motor Company use to sell their product and
reach their audience. To start off, Hyundai was mentored by Ford Automobile Company only 40 years
ago and soon enough, it is one of the fastest growing automobiles company worldwide. In fact, it was
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stated that Hyundai’s technological growth and market growth has reached to the point that now this
automobile company is a huge supplier of technology to the world’s top automobile company. The main
factors of Hyundai’s fast growth are due to its developed technologies, its high quality products, and
most importantly its market sensitive strategies. This means that Hyundai finds and pierces through the
right market at the correct time. This is not something that can be done easily or efficiently, however
Hyundai successfully does this by receiving the needed and important market information, which not
many automobile companies can receive at that speed (Newscast, 2012).
The selection of the right target market is one of the very first steps any firm needs to take into
consideration. During the 1980’s, Hyundai targeted the Korean market only. This was not really a smart
strategy because a handful of other top automobile companies concentrated on other countries around
the globe. Hyundai realized this and was quick to realize, that if they did not successfully target other
markets around the world, they would not expand any further. Halpert (2011) stated that Hyundai first
entered the Canadian market and shortly the US market. The first car Hyundai introduced to the world
outside of Korea was the car Excel. Shortly after Hyundai knew it was time to expand even more due to
the well accepted reaction for their products. Hyundai hit the European markets, and while doing so, the
company realized that they were in need of a low-cost production location in order for them to export
their cars worldwide.
Hyundai’s close competitors had their production locations in Europe. However, as stated previously,
Hyundai was smart enough to think fast, and find a location that would be cheaper for them to produce
mass amounts at lower costs. Hyundai’s strategy for production was solely focused on delivering
products that had a combination of reliable products, with quality, that were at an inexpensive price range.
This strategic method was a competitive advantage for the company; in fact, Hyundai’s sales were top
charted. On the other hand, Hyundai’s marketing strategy was perceived as “cheap”. Again, Hyundai
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was quick to their feet, and provided numerous and various products such as Getz and Accent which
focused on the upper class and produced high quality and high technological advanced car systems
(Halpert, 2011).
Hyundai’s passion for creating new innovative products and product quality is their strongest
advantage. In return, their production and sales increase dramatically. Mong Koo Chung stated that their
secret to future growth is to continue developing innovative products in order to appeal the rising global
markets. Another important factor that Hyundai is contributing to the society is their corporate obligation
to secure the environment by also providing environmentally friendly vehicles. Another marketing
strategy that Hyundai has as an advantage is their number one priority for customer satisfaction. They
incorporate their customer needs and wants, whether if it’s inexpensive high quality products or highclass vehicles that have top technologies (Chung, n.d.).
To keep its customers informed, Hyundai is using social media websites. Hyundai has a Facebook
page where its employees post their new product’s advertisements. It uses it to announce events and be
more involved with the community as well as inform the website’s visitors about the company in the
“about” page where there is a full company description (Hyundai Fan Page, n.d.). Hyundai also has a
YouTube channel where it uploads videos of its cars for interested consumers who want to know more
about their products, prices and quality. It also upload videos of events it usualy holds (Hyundai World
Wide, n.d.). Hyundai has also recently established several Twitter accounts to help customers with any
inquires and technical support. They also announce events and offers and on their cars through this
website (Hyundai Live, n.d.).
So now, after understanding marketing communications, and understanding Hyundai’s marketing
strategies, we can make an initial outcome or conclusion of the efficiency of their marketing channels.
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Based on the primary study we have made we can see that Hyundai has no marketing gap in their
marketing communications strategies, meaning it is delivering its message as acutely and as clearly to its
targeted segment of consumer. However, this is just an initial conclusion and upon the completion of our
research we will re-assess this conclusion and see whether Hyundai marketing communications function
effectively here in Saudi Arabia or not.
Research Methodology
In order to achieve our aim of this research, which is examining the effectiveness of Hyundai
marketing communication channels that it uses in reaching out its target market, we have to collect
primary and secondary data.
Secondary data is the data that have already been collect and analyze. It’s provides a good starting
point for the research. We used several books and articles that discuss marketing communication, what
marketing managers do and how marketing communications work. They also helped us to understand
the challenges of marketing communication and the manners of obstacles marketing face nowadays.
Moreover, we used Hyundai’s website and other websites to gather some information about the company
marketing strategy and what communication channels Hyundai uses to advertise its products and to build
relationships with customers.
As we already have secondary date, primary data is also critical for filling in the gaps left after
secondary research is completed. For our research paper, we have used the most common method, which
is the survey (questionnaire) approach so we’ve conducted qualitative and quantitative data gathering
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methods. Questionnaires are suitable for gathering descriptive information because they are flexible,
rapid, and less costly comparing to observational or experimental research (Kothari, 1985).
For the quantitative questionnaire, we chose to do it online using surveymonkey.com and distributed
throw Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp. The reason of choosing this type of contact methods is because
of its flexibility, low cost, and the speed of collecting date and getting responses. We’ve distributed the
survey among almost hundred people (consumers) selected randomly and we are expecting to get around
%60 average responses. This sample gives us reliable information with giving individuals known and
equal chance from the population. We used close-ended questions that include all possible answers and
participants have to choose among them. We started with three demographic questions to know more
about Hyundai’s customers and whether our participants are from Hyundai’s target our not. We used
multiple-choice, yes or no, and scaling questions to know more about customer values and the
effectiveness of Hyundai’s communication channels in reaching their target. These types of questions are
easier to collect, interpret, and tabulate (Kotler & Armstrong, 2012). Refer to Appendices, Section A for
the survey questions.
For the qualitative data, we planned to do structured face-to-face personal interview with Mr. Yaser
Abo Malek, the marketing manager for Almajdouie Company which is the official agent for Hyundai
here in Saudi Arabia. We prepared and set several structured open-ended questions that allow him to
answer easily and fast. These several questions ask about the different marketing communication
channels that Hyundai uses, the purpose of depending on them, the effectiveness of those marketing
communication channels, their strategies and techniques in marketing, and their future marketing plans.
Refer to Appendices, Section B for the interview questions.
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Data Analysis
We aim to understand the marketing communication channels Hyundai uses as a company, and in
order to reach or accomplish this goal, several steps need to be taken under consideration. What kind of
relationship Hyundai is trying to build with their consumers? And is it effective? Have Hyundai
developed new strategies that would keep its marketing communication effective? Of course in order to
accomplish all those goals Hyundai needs several departments to have an effective marketing
communication. For example; marketing managers are those who establish the marketing communication
messages to the customers or consumers. Also, there is another reason why Hyundai needs several
departments taking care of the marketing communication types and what affect the most on people these
days, it is because the customers’ way of thinking is changing from time to time, so companies who want
to have an effective marketing, they have to adapt with the modern way. Companies need to consider
these days, the product type, the consumer’s psychology, culture and social. All these are factors could
affect the buyer buying behavior. And that is what Hyundai studied and focused on to target its customers.
Hyundai is a very old company, experience must be one of their advantages. In the past companies
had different trends, because people had different way of thinking. Hyundai used to focus on TV
advertisement, because most of the people were attracted to it at that time. However, today most of the
people are attracted to social media such as Facebook and YouTube. Therefore, Hyundai changed their
direction to what can really attract potential customers these days. Hyundai realized that most of the
people have some kind of technology available in their hands and have access to it, so Hyundai for
example; started to establish radio stations you can easily download on your devise and listen to. As
mentioned before, there are 2 types of communications: mass communication and direct communication.
Hyundai is focusing on both of them, that’s why Hyundai marketing communication has a strong
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foundation or what some people call “fearless marketing”, because Hyundai reaches people almost
through every channel they can get into. Having an effective marketing department that considers all the
factors that are affecting the customers buying behavior and way of thinking, it has to lead it to the top.
Hyundai is one of the fastest growing automobile. And Hyundai is known for high quality, technology
development, and what we care about the most is their marketing communications and strategies.
Marketing the right target is what made Hyundai where it is right now.
Hyundai has to create some methods to get into their customers attention. Several ways Hyundai could
achieve that, but only the most effective and efficient methods will attract the consumers or customers.
To know what and how Hyundai get into their consumers’ mind, understand their buying behavior, and
get their attention. Some researches were done to examine or test how efficient the Hyundai marketing.
Hyundai covered almost every popular social media network such as: YouTube, Facebook, Twitter...etc.
also, there are another ways that Hyundai exposed itself for example; SMS, radio stations...etc. Hyundai
exposed itself where almost everyone knew about the new product or services that they provide.
Hunyadi provided an official YouTube channel worldwide. What Hunyadi tying to approach here is
downloading or providing videos on YouTube to attract people from all over the world. Providing videos
gives customers a better and clear idea about what Hunyadi is attempting to do, beside that young people
are more attracted to videos that reading articles, so establishing that channel will give Hunyadi the
attention that it targeted from the beginning. Hunyadi established a channel on YouTube, so it can have
the opportunity to demonstrate to people what are their new products and services, also to show people
where Hunyadi can take it further. Also, Hunyadi provided links that will lead you to your Facebook
page or Google to share information with other people Hunyadi created this idea, so its customers won’t
take long time to login into those sites. Hunyadi keeps some of their old videos to show people how its
products have developed.
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More than 175 million people are using Facebook every day. The purpose of it is to keep people
connected with their friends and families and to to be always updated with new information. Hunyadi
here used it as an opportunity to achieve its marketing goals. Hunyadi established a channel on Facebook
to keep people updated to what is new in Hyundai. Because Facebook has a lot of popularity, you can
find that most of the companies do their advertisement through Facebook pages and it is a way to compete
and be innovative.
As we mentioned in the methodology, we made a face-to-face interview with the marketing manager
of Hyundai. We noticed that Hunyadi keeps their employees updated on all the changes that occur in the
organization, also they keep their customers engaging with their employees by SMS, sending them email to inform them about the new products or services the company is providing. This will create a
strong work environment with informed employees which will help in spreading news more rapidly.
Moreover, Hunyadi has different marketing methods and strategies in each country depending on its
population, culture, lifestyle…etc. For example, Hunyadi found that the word of mouth is very effective
in Saudi Arabia, so Hunyadi is focusing more in that channel, because that what attract people the most.
It also noticed how Saudis are really attracted to Apple products, so they developed a Hyundai
Application that customers can download for free in the App Store. This application can help customers
to can view Hyundai vehicles, book a driving test…etc.
Almajdouie Company which is Hyundai agent here in Saudi Arabia use newspapers (Print Ad) heavily
since Dammam is a metropolitan city and newspaper reading is an essential part of people’s daily
activities which give good visibility to the ads. It uses SMS in a wider way as people here use mobiles
extensively. It basically focuses on two categories: potential customers and a segment of people based of
the existing customers.
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Figure 1
Any company must has a target area that they attempt to attract people to their products or services.
Hunyadi focuses on young people from the age of 18-36. How they attracted those ages? By making
advertisement full of action and adventure. Also, those kind of customers look for high quality and
attractive deigns. They care about the appearance more than anything else, so Hunyadi provides that to
them. Also, since the people from age 18-24 they have just start to save money, Hyundai promised them
with low cost and well-designed cars. That is the reason why we see about 49.4 % of Saudi population
will choose Hyundai. (See figure 1).
Figure 2
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Hyundai promised to deliver to people good quality, attractive looking designs and at a reasonable
cost. As we are all familiar with the fact that women in Saudi Arabia are not allowed to drive, those
women asked for foreign drives. Now those females are looking for a suitable cars to buy, and since
Hyundai provides them the materials they are looking for, the sales increase in Saudi Arabia from the
female side as shown in figure 2.
Figure 3
As we can see here if figure 3, most of the people here in Saudi have less than SR 50,000 income and
this represents the majority. What kind of care are those people looking for? According to their income,
they need cars with low cost, good quality, good design, and safety. Hyundai does provide that to people,
where they can enjoy the nice looking with a lower cost. People with a high income, of course Hyundai
made a unique cars for them, like Genesis, it shows high quality, luxury, safety, and high quality in the
design. Hyundai here covered almost all the categories of people income by providing many choices.
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Figure 4
The majority of people in this survey are looking for some specific options in a car. For example; best
performance, good repair, recognized brand name, high quality, and easy/ fast service. The highest
percentages in this survey are the best performance and high quality (see figure 4). This shows what
people are looking for, so it determines if its strategies attract customers or not.
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Figure 5
This part of the survey shows that people are attracted to Hyundai’s advertisement. 47% people said
yes means they have recognized Hyundai somewhere (see figure 5). Hyundai advertisement are making
a huge progress in this field, and that will guarantee that those people who come across Hyundai’s
advertisement will think about it and it will be saved in their memories.
Figure 6
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Now the question is what kind of advertisement they came across? As shown in figure 6, 79% of
people have seen the advertisement on TV and this is a huge percentage. It means that Hyundai are
reaching what it was planning to reach. Hyundai is making a lot of achievements and progress through
TV ads. It spend a lot of money, time, and effort in order to have a very attractive ads show in TV screens.
Figure 7
This part of the survey (see figure 7) shows whether Hyundai is influencing on people or not, and if
they agree or not with options that Hyundai provides. Between 13%-25% felt that Hyundai is attracting
them through its marketing or advertisement. However; 51.5% felt that they might pay attention to
Hyundai’s advertisement. Also, 9.8%-29.5 find out Hyundai advertisements are reliable, and 13.3%-25%
found the advertisement are demonstrating the idea clearly, means Hyundai is delivering a very clear
message to its customers.
What kind of relationships Hyundai trying to build with their consumers, and what is Hyundai doing
to reach their customers, is it effecting them, are the channels that Hyundai using are successful. All these
question were established to be studies and examine to see how people are attracted to Hyundai vehicles.
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At this point we have understood the marketing communication channels of Hyundai, and how it plans
to accomplish its goals. Hyundai has proved to people the customers and the other competitive companies
that it is able to give clear messages to their audience in a very effective way. Also, Hyundai was and still
able to serve all the different categories of people from the high class to the lower one.
Conclusion and Recommendation
In short, Hyundai Motor Company is considered one of the leading automobile companies. Its
marketing communication channels are truly effective and its products are reaching a huge segment of
people all around the world. Hyundai abilities to adapt new innovative ways to attain potential customers’
attention to its new products are magnificent compared with other competitors. It has been using all the
possibilities through media, social networks…etc., to target customers in each community depending on
its culture, lifestyle, demography, and social class.
However, as a recommendation, Hyundai should make use of its internal strengths like its worldwide
corporate support, quality, and production advantages. It has been always known for its affordable
vehicles that quietly low class individuals can offer it. In this case, upper class individuals will not pay
attention to it. So, to market for its luxury product, Hyundai needs to to create a sister brand to get the
desired attention. It also needs virtual services for customers’ services to show how developed is Hyundai
system and therefore, it will add to the marketing development without noticing.
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References
Blythe, J. (2006). Essentials of Marketing Communications. (3rd ed.). Harlow: Pearson Education.
Chung, M. K. (n.d.). Hyundai Company Information. Retrieved November 11, 2012, from:
http://www.hyundai.com/SA/dm_en/CompanyInfomation/HMC/CorporateMessage/Corporate
Message.htm
Das. A. (n.d). Marketing Plan for Hyundai PA. Retrieved November 7, 2012, from
http://www.scribd.com/doc/6085700/Marketing-Plan-for-Hyundai-PA#outer_page_10
De Pelsmacker, P., Geuens, M., & Van Den Bergh, J. (2005). Foundations of Marketing
Communications. Harlow: Pearson Education.
Fill, C. (2006). Simply Marketing Communications. Harlow: Pearson Education.
Halpert, J. (2011, October 10). Hyundai Marketing Boss: We're Not Just A 'Left-Brain Choice'.
Retrieved November 11, 2012, from Advertising Age: http://adage.com/article/news/hyundaimarketing-boss-a-left-brain-choice/230305/
FaceBook. (n.d.). Hyundai Fan Page. Retrieved December 7, 2012, from Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/Hyundai
Twitter. (n.d.). Hyundai Live. Retrieved December 7, 2012, from Twitter:
https://twitter.com/HyundaiLive
Hyundai Website. (2012). Financial Information. Retrieved November 5, 2012, from
http://worldwide.hyundai.com/WW/Corporate/InvestorRelations/FinancialInformation/Financia
lStatements/index.html
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YouTube. (n.d.). Hyundai World Wide. Retrieved December 7, 2012, from:
http://www.youtube.com/user/HyundaiWorldwide
Janzer, A. (2011, March 30). Old Marketing Channels Never Die. Retrieved December 3rd, 2012, from:
http://annejanzer.com/2011/03/30/old-marketing-channels-never-die/
Jobber, D., & Fahy, J. (2010). Foundations of Marketing. Berkshire: Mcgraw-Hill.
Kothari, C.R. (1985). Research Methodology-Methods and Techniques. New Delhi, Wiley Eastern
Limited.
Kotler, P., & Armstrong, G. (2012). Principles of Marketing. (14th ed.). Harlow: Pearson.
Newscast. (2012, March 12). Fast & Furious - The Hyundai Way. Retrieved November 10, 2012, from:
http://www.nitiemig.com/2012/03/12/fast-furious-marketing-the-hyundai-way/
O'Dell, J. (2011, January 25). The History of Social Media. Retrieved December 3rd, 2012, from:
http://mashable.com/2011/01/24/the-history-of-social-media-infographic/
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Appendices
Section A:

Survey Questionnaire
1. Age
o Less than 18
o 18 - 24
o 25 - 29
o 30 - 36
o 37 - 49
o 50 and above
2. Gender
o Male
o Female
3. What is your approximate annual household income?
o Less than SR 12,000
o SR 12,000 - SR 50,000
o SR 50,000 - SR 75,000
o SR 75,000 - SR 100,000
o SR 100,000 - SR 250,000
o SR 250,000 - SR 500,000
o More than SR 500,000
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1. What would be your most important factors in choosing a new car? (Choose all that apply)
o Best performance
o Good repair/Warranty service
o Recognized brand name
o Advertisements
o High quality
o Easy/fast service
o Discount
o Good sales representative/dealer/owner
o Broad selection of products
2. Have you recently come across any of Hyundai’s advertisements?
o Yes
o No
o Not sure
3. Referring to the previous question: if you have been seen the advertisements, where have you
been seen them?
o Newspapers & Magazines
o TV
o Billboards
o Internet
o SMS
o Radio
o Other (please specify)
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4. If you are not likely to buy Hyundai’s new product, why not?
o No need
o Price
o Poor Customer Service
o Expensive maintenance
o Few features
o Other (please specify)
Please choose how much do you agree or disagree about each statement
Strongly
Strongly
Agree Neutral
Disagree
Agree
Disagree
5. Convenience is important when choosing a new car
o
o
o
o
o
6. Hyundai’s Advertisements are interesting
o
o
o
o
o
7. Claims in Hyundai's advertisements are believe-able
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
8. Hyundai's advertisements clearly show what is being
offered
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Section B

Interview Questionnaire
1. What types of communication channels that your company is currently using to attract your consumer’s
attention? Why did you specifically choose these channels?
2. Hyundai’s is well known of their reliable, high quality products with reliable price. In your opinion, what
is the most effective communication channel that helped in delivering your message and reaching your
target customers? How?
3. Have you ever had a failure in delivering your message to your target? What causes that failure?
4. It’s identified that personal communication is effective in creating desires and actions. What strategies
or methods are you adapting to reach that?
5. We know that most of internal communication is of personal nature like meetings, presentations, and
phone calls. And some marketers say that all employees are part-time marketers. Do you apply this
concept in Hyundai’s marketing strategy? If so, how?
6. How is “Word of Mouth” marketing helping you in reaching your target customers and increasing the
sales?
7. What are the impacts that social media networking on the company’s status such as increase in the sales
and customer satisfaction? Is the organization planning for coordinating and measuring social media
efforts across the organization?
8. From visiting your Facebook page, we’ve realized that you interact with your customers by posting new
offers, answering their questions, and even posting some puzzles about Hyundai. How do you think that
help in delivering your products and increasing your customer loyalty?
9. What is the strategy (techniques) that you’re implementing to reach your target via commercial SMSs
channels?
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10. Do you have a database for direct marketing and customer Relationship management like sending emails
about sales to your customers?
11. How much you’re spending in advertisement?
12. Are you planning to adapt new way (channels) to advertise and communicate with your customers? If
so, what would that new channel be? And why?
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