iPanel_Honda

=**ALLIANCE WITH HONDA **=

Apple iPanel will cooperate with Honda to implement a crossover sales promotion. We pick Honda because Honda’s target market matches the target segment for iPanel, especially for the young generation segment. Honda has built its brand as a young, energetic and affordable brand image that targets University students to young professionals. We will ally with the Honda Insight, Fit, Civic and Element lines through selling in special deals to have iPanel as one of the basic features in those 2010 models. This means that Honda customers who purchase one of those lines will get a free iPanel for their new car. This is more than a CRM program. Since we will be allying with the four 2010 models, it will create a pull strategy to attract potential customers to ask about this promotion at their dealerships. The dealerships will subscribe to us and ask for special deals for giving iPanel away for other Honda models. In this case, we will generate buzz and sales naturally by selling iPanel to Honda dealerships in a discount for other Honda lines so that customers will have an option to get an iPanel when purchasing Honda cars other than our four promotion models. Toyota was our first choice at first. However, due to its current negative reputation Toyota will be a high risk to ally with at this point. Also, Toyota has too strong of a price penetrating image. It does not orient upon neither the younger group nor persona building. This contradicts with the image of our product. Therefore, compared to Honda, Toyota is not a choice at this point. One of the highlights of our iPanel strategic promotion is the cooperative promotion with Honda. Apart from the business alliance with Honda, in which iPanel will be one of the basic features that come with Honda Insight, Fit, Civic and Element 2010; we will cooperate with Honda to implement a car giveaway contest as our viral marketing tactic. By setting up a “Share with Friends” button on the page, users can forward this page to their friends through integrating to their accounts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogger, etc. After that, the top five videos our candidates created will become our viral videos on YouTube, with no production costs, and to be shared by everyone on other social media and websites. This will maximize the buzz.
 * How can Honda dealerships take part? **
 * Why not Toyota? **
 * __ Viral Marketing – “Win a Free Honda Insight” Giveaway Contest __**