Ventura Motors makes midsized and luxury automobiles in the United States. Best-selling models include its basic four-door sedans (priced from to ) and two-door and four-door luxury automobiles (priced from to ). The success of two-seat sports cars like the Mazda RX-8 influenced the company to start evaluating the market for a two-seat sports car priced midway between the moderate and luxury market. -Research found that there was indeed significant demand and that Ventura needed to act quickly to take advantage of this market opportunity. Ventura took the platform of the car from a popular model in its moderate line, borrowing the internal design from its luxury line.

The car was designed, engineered, and produced in just over two years, but the coordination needed to bring the design together resulted in higher than anticipated costs. The price for this two-seat car, the Olympus, was set at . Dealers were anxious to take delivery on the car, and salespeople were well trained on techniques to sell this new model. However, initial sales have been slow, and company executives are surprised and concerned. The Olympus was introduced relatively quickly, made available at all Ventura dealers, priced midway between luxury and moderate models, and advertised heavily since its introduction. In your original discussion post, be sure to address the following questions:

1 What do you think were the main concerns with the Olympus two-door sports coupe? is there a market for a two-seat, $32,000 sports car when the RX-8 sells for significantly less?

2 What is the role of the marketing mix in the Olympus introduction?

3 What are some of the marketing strategies auto manufacturers use to stimulate sales of certain makes of automobiles?