Abstract

The automobile industry especially imported cars are the most lucrative sector in Iranian market since the disposable income in both urban and rural are increasing and easy alternative finance being provided by all Iranian financial institutions are developing, furthermore imported cars are considered as a short-term investment among the consumer in Iranian market due the foreign currency fluctuations. This study is considered as the first research to review the consumer buying behavior about imported cars and how Datis Company advertise, promote and what is the best place to be advertised to convince customers to buy or try new cars in the Iranian market. Promotional mix have the consequence of creating brand images and symbolic appeals that can be the effective way to strike the responsive chord with consumers. The purpose of this paper is to examine the consumer buying behavior about the imported car through various IMC tools, discover most efficient place , most influential advertising message and how often consumers decide to change the car to better or new one in the Iranian market. A simple random sampling was selected as the sampling method. The customers of Datis Company (Previous Purchase) were sampled to respond to the online questionnaires and 197 questionnaires were returned providing an 89.5 % response rate. We initiated with conducting an exploratory research on Iranian consumer behavior to determine the most important attribute adopted by them. The regression method applied to understand the influence of independent variables (Advertising, WOM, Internet Marketing, Direct Marketing, Public Relations, and Sales Promotion) on the dependent variable (IMC) in Datis Company. Above all, online marketing Communication (OMC), web and social network is discovered as the most effective way of placing the advertisement for Datis Company in the Iranian market. The findings of this study provide managerial implications for marketers for the advertising practice of technologically advanced products. The ambiguous results of the analysis suggest that companies should put more emphasis on the selection of the communicated information content of their advertisements.

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