When gas prices began to soar out of control, and seemingly will never stop soaring, some firms found a great strategic window.  One of these firms I believe would have been Honda.  Honda was always thought of as smaller fuel efficient vehicles, but back in 2001, who cared about fuel economy.  We always had a gas guzzler SUV and several trucks.  Hell even in the ninetees, fuel was relatively cheap compared to now.  Now that gas is hovering around the four dollar a gallon mark, and diesel has surpassed that, many people are fuel efficiency concious.  I don't blame them, my diesel '01 Cummins gets 14 mpg on a good day!  Having said that I think this was a great time for Honda and sales increased, due to their many fuel sipping models.  According to a source (http://voices.yahoo.com/top-eco-friendly-cars-last-decade-honda-has-insight-5136417.html) Honda led the way to offer green vehicles to the US.  All in all I think that Honda has a great chance still to take the lead in greener vehicles and offer consumers some relief at the pump with outstanding mileages. 

According to the textbook, the marketing plan is a written document stating specifically the tasks to be performed to implement and control the firms marketing activities.  The marketing plan is ultimately under the strategic planning under the the marketing objectives and strategy.  I think the marketing plan describes who the firm is targeting, how they are going to do that targeting, and and if there is a good opportunity to target that market.  Many factors go into the marketing plan and can present a challenge to firms.  Some examples would be the marketing plan for the Chevy Sonic car, seems to be aimed at younger, adventurous individuals. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuvoSw1TiJ8&seo=goo

I think the hardest part of the marketing plan is deciding who to target with your product.  How did Chevy decide that this car should target young adventurous people, and not older people?

Target Marketing

By definition, target marketing is when a firm targets a specific group of customers, buy creating a product that they would want.  One of my favorite firms has to be Coors, especially during my time here in college.  I think that they target us college kids specifically, since they have developed a can with a frost-brewed liner, a wide mouth and vent to aid in the faster flowing of the contents, and the best part is the cold beer indicator.  All of these awesome components have definatley caught my other college buddies attention, and we keep buying it.  Plus, being brewed in the Rockies, where the Denver Broncos play, you know its goin to be good.

Moneyless exhanges

Marketing is defined as an exchange for something that both parties want.  I've have been in serval exchanges not involving money, such as helping neighbors brand.  All the neighbors here figure out when they would like to brand and we all go and help out in exhange for them to come help us when its our turn to brand.  Its just basically an exchange of work.