The document discusses marketing strategies used by American Express, including targeting higher income social classes and building an image of prestige. It also discusses factors that influence the adoption of hybrid vehicles like the Honda Insight, such as relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, observability, and trialability. Personal information sources will be more important than impersonal sources in a consumer's decision to purchase the Honda Insight.

2. The company maintains a profile of 450 attribute and purchasing patterns on all cardholders that is updated weekly.

3. AmEx segments card owners by lifestyle and income, and then aims services appropriately for each group, such as extra travel insurance for senior citizens concerned with security or a special magazine for students.

4. AmEx ran the 'Do you Know Me?' campaign which presented interesting and well-known famous-named people who were not recognizable but were accorded importance when they used the American Express Card. The promise was that the ordinary user would also be accorded prestige when they used the card. In the long-running 'Membership Has Its Privileges' campaign, cardholders are showing enjoying the man, benefits of the card's services.

5. AmEx then piles its customer database with bill suffers or catalogs to sell other items to receptive buyers. By carefully targeting direct marketing efforts to cardholders only for products and services that are relevant to them, the company tries to avoid harming the client relationship.

7. TASK 2Q 1) The chapter discussed a number of product characteristics that influence the diffusion process. How does the Honda insight (and hybrid vehicles in generals), rate on each of these characteristics?<br />Answer- There are five product characteristic that influences the diffusion process.<br />a) relative advantage - The Insight is thousands of dollars cheaper, gets comparable fuel economy, has a crisper look and provides a more agile and enjoyable ride. On the other hand the Prius is classed as a mid-sized car based on its interior volume, the Insight is a compact. The dashboard of the Insight looks like a blending of the Honda Civic and Honda Fit.<br />b) Compatibility - The Advanced Compatibility Engineering body structure is a Honda insight exclusive body design that enhances occupant protection and crash compatibility in frontal collisions. The ACE design utilizes a network of connected structural elements to distribute crash energy more evenly throughout the front of the vehicle. This enhanced frontal crash energy management helps to reduce the forces transferred to the passenger compartment and can help to more evenly disperse the forces transferred to other vehicles in a crash.<br />c) Observability – It looks nice because of its modern look, stylish and aerodynamic, very comfortable in back as well as front( very roomy), drives great and reliability also. Its fully loaded feature is definitely worth getting for the price.<br />d) Complexity - Compared to the Prius, the 2010 Honda Insight is a lot less complex, at least in the drivetrain department. It has an eight-valve SOHC 1.3-liter inline-4 engine rated at 88 hp and 88 lb-ft of torque. It also has a CVT. Between the engine and the CVT is a small electric motor. It can't motivate the Insight on its own as frequently or as fast as does the Prius motor, but when it joins forces with the gas engine, it provides the compact front-wheel-drive hatchback with a respectable 98 hp at 5,800 rpm and 123 lb-ft of torque from 1,000-1,500 rpm. To its credit, the engine is not unpleasant to the ear. The blending of gas and electric power is seamless enough, but the car feels jerky coming out of idle from a stop.<br />e) Trialability -Trialability is the degree to which an innovation may be experimented with limited basis. New ideas that can be tried on an instalment plan will generally be adopted more quickly than innovations that are not divisible. So, the greater the opportunity to try a new product, the easier it is for consumers to evaluate it and ultimately adopt it. People must do trialability before purchasing vehicle, but they will not get more number of chances.<br />Q 2) How important will personal and impersonal information sources be in a consumer’s decision to purchase the Honda insight?<br />Answer – Both personal and impersonal information sources be in a consumer’s decision will play a vital role in purchasing the Honda insight. Personal sources of information are the most preferred by consumers in decision making. On the other hand, family members and extensionists/advisors are the most used information sources and therefore confirm the basis of the Trusted People group. Impersonal information sources means without reference to any individual person and word of mouth .impersonal information sources belongs to television, internet, bill boards, media advertising, also influences consumer decision making. Personal information sources have more power to influence consumer decision making than impersonal information sources. Research also reveals that consumer decision making based on personal information sources have higher success rate.<br />