The Tata Nano was the crown jewel of Tata back in 2009, it was Tata’s Tesla Model 3 in the sense that it was Tata’s effort in bringing a car down to a ridiculously low price to make it accessible to everyone. But Tata’s project was way bigger!
The Nano was Tata’s dream! It launched with a base price of just Rs. 1 lakh, making it the cheapest production car in the world. In fact, documentaries were shot on Tata’s triumph. But Tata in 2009 did not know that the Nano’s woes were about to begin!
Mediocre Marketing – Marketing was not Tata’s cup of tea back then and the marketing was not up to the mark for this car. A car priced this low needs adequate marketing to cover costs, and, well, advertise the car.
Tata went full beans on their marketing initiatives but they were too aggressive on using the term ‘cheapest’. Unfortunately, the car landed upon us when we were using the word ‘cheap’ as a metaphor to criticise the bad quality of something. This created a stigma that caused the public to perceive the car as inferior, which it certainly was not!
