Case Study- MRF Tyres Digital Marketing Strategies

Today, transportation is required for everything, from the moving of completed goods or raw materials across states to more basic activities like family outings, shopping trips, and visits to your favourite places.

Because of this growing requirement for mobility, powerful engines and top-notch tyres are also required.

The whole auto and transportation sector depends on tyres. The name that instantly pops into our minds as soon as we hear about tyres is MRF tyres.

Founder And History of Madras Rubber Factory (MRF) Tyres

In 1946, K. M. Mammen Mappillai invested Rs. 14,000 to establish The Madras Rubber Factory in Tiruvottiyur, Chennai, as a modest operation for toys, balloons, latex cast squeaky toys and industrial gloves.

It is now a multibillion-dollar firm that manufactures high-quality tyres utilized both domestically and abroad.

The company, which exports tyres and conveyor belts to more than 65 countries, has kept its top spot in the tyre industry and was the first to surpass an annual sales of Rs. 5000 crores in the Indian products export market.

Due to its extensive global reach, The Madras Rubber Factory enjoys high brand visibility and client retention. The success ladder was simple for MRF to climb because of a rising market and the concurrent rise of the automobile sector. It is mostly in the B2B industry, with an emphasis on partnerships with automakers.

In cooperation with the Ohio-based Mansfield Tire & Rubber Firm, The Madras Rubber Factory Limited was established as a private limited company in November 1960. Their primary focus was on the production of tyres.

The firm went public on 1 April 1961, and in 1964, an office was opened in Beirut, Lebanon, to expand the export market. At the same time, the company’s present emblem, the muscleman, was also created. In 1967, it became the first Indian business to export tyres to the United States.

Beginning in 1973, MRF produced nylon tyres for the first time. In 1978, it began collaborating on technical knowledge with B. F. Goodrich.

In 1979, Mansfield Tire & Rubber Co. sold all of its stock in the business, and MRF Ltd. became the new name of the organization. The business completed a technical merger agreement with Marangoni TRS SPA, Italy, to produce pre-cured tread rubber for the retreading sector.

The company’s product line was expanded in 2004–2005 with the addition of Go-kart, rally, and two- and three-wheeler tyres.

MRF was ranked no.3 in the non-FMCG category in the Kantar BrandZ, 2021 survey and is the 6th strongest brand in the country as per Brand Finance 2022, a UK-based brand valuation company.

Madras Rubber Factory (MRF) Tyres – Company Highlights

Why Should Marketers Study Digital Marketing Strategies?

Because of the quickly expanding industry of digital marketing, there is a greater need than ever for experienced and skilled marketers. Keeping up with the most recent marketing techniques will give you an advantage over your rivals.

Studying the digital marketing strategies of other brands will support the development of your brand, it helps you rapidly examine and comprehend real-time data, gives you insightful information about consumer behaviour, and improves your ability to think critically and solve problems.

Having current information will aid in the implementation of comprehensive and creative initiatives. These tactics help your marketing campaign succeed and produce results that are advantageous for both you and the business client.

The demand for knowledgeable and talented marketers is more than ever due to the rapidly growing field of digital marketing. Keeping up with the newest marketing strategies will put you ahead of your competitors. And this benefit will be advantageous in the long run.

Let us now discuss MRF Tyres’s digital marketing strategies in detail.

Market Segment & Target Audience of MRF Tyres

MRF tyres’s online audience consists of 85.87% male and 14.13% female. The largest age group of visitors are 25 – 34-year-olds, which indicates how a new generation of people is taking over businesses online.

MRF tyres cover a wide range of market segments. MRF tyres’ target audiences are Institutional Customers (original equipment manufacturers, State Transport Undertakings, Defence, Govt. Departments, and Contractors) and Retail Markets.

MRF commands attention in each of the segments (In fact, it has a very high rating on customer satisfaction and also won the Most Ethical Company award in 1999).

Marketing Strategy of MRF Tyres

The study of a series of steps that a company takes to market a name, a product, or a set of services is known as the marketing mix. It consists of the four Ps: product, price, place, and promotion.

MRF Product Strategies

Following is an explanation of the product strategy and mix in the MRF marketing strategies:

One of the top tyre producers in India is MRF. The product strategy used by MRF in its marketing mix is as follows:

• MRF tyres for two, three, and four-wheel vehicles (passenger vehicles and transport as well)

• Sports gear: MRF manufactures bats, pads, gloves, and other items for cricket. MRF offers equipment for racing sports as well.

• Conveyor belt – the Muscleflex conveyor belt that it manufactured.

• Paints and coatings – MRF also manufactures ornamental, automotive, and industrial paints.

MRF Price/Pricing Strategies

Bridgestone, JK Tyres, Apollo Tyres, CEAT, and other companies pose a serious threat to MRF in the tyre market. MRF’s marketing mix consequently employs a competitive price strategy.

MRF markets itself on the promise of excellence and its knowledge of tyres. Nevertheless, margins are substantial since markup pricing is used throughout the entire sector. 

MRF Place & Distribution Strategies:

The MRF marketing mix’s distribution plan is as follows:

• MRF has seven facilities, most of which are in southern India.
• It has about 2500 stores and exports to 65 nations.
• MRF dispenses goods to factories, representatives, regional hubs, dealers, etc.
• Sports stores across the country carry MRF equipment.

Most tyre sales are made to dealers and agents. Since tyres are an integral part of vehicles, it is less important to sell directly to consumers. Instead, tyre purchases are typically made through auto manufacturers, retailers, or service facilities.

Given the strong brand equity and extensive advertising, MRF doesn’t have any MRF-specific storefronts because it is simple to sell through dealerships.

MRF Promotion & Advertising Strategies:

In its marketing mix, MRF has consistently prioritized an aggressive promotional strategy. Many illustrious cricket players, including Sachin Tendulkar, Steve Waugh, and Brian Lara, have had their cricket bats sponsored by MRF tyres.

More prominent players, including Shikar Dhawan, AB de Villers, and Virat Kohli, support MRF. In addition to celebrity endorsements, MRF sponsored the World Cup and IPL 2010 anchored balloons.

The MRF Pace Foundation serves as a pacer training facility. Irfan Pathan, Zaheer Khan, Munaf Patel, and other bowlers who received training at the MRF Pace Foundation went on to represent the nation in the national squad. A racing event called MRF Motor Challenge is also organized by the brand.

MRF uses all these promotional strategies to increase brand visibility, associate with famous cricketers, reach its target audience, create an emotional connection with cricket fans, and gain a competitive edge in the market.

Also Read: Tata Motors Digital Marketing Case Study

MRF Tyre’s Social Media Marketing Strategies & Case Study

Social media marketing refers to promoting a business online on specific platforms based on the requirements of that business.

It is a budget-friendly way to create an updated and engaging online and social presence that reflects your brand identity and value.

A brand today needs to have a strong social media presence. MRF Tyres are present on all social media channels, including Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter. It has been optimized for quality leads, traffic, and engagement from social media platforms.

Here’s how they are performing on these social media platforms:

MRF tyres have a YouTube presence since 2013 with almost 10.1K subscribers and 138+ video uploads, which have a total of 17,824,166 views, and some of the popular ad campaigns like MRF ZLX tyres have more than 28k views.

The main attraction of the YouTube channel of MRF Tyres is the series with cricket sensation Virat Kohli called Tips to Tread Anywhere.

Each of these videos has millions of views. However, MRF tyres are still behind its competitors when it comes to YouTube presence.

MRF Tyre’s Facebook and Instagram have over 229K and 29.8K followers, respectively. On Instagram, they are growing significantly as they are more active on the platform & running a series of campaigns.

The company has a Twitter following of more than 41.1K. Being active since 2013, MRF Tyres has had 4565 active tweets. 

MRF tyres have decent followers on LinkedIn as well with the follower count crossing 87.5K. In fact, surprisingly, most of MRF’s social media traffic comes from LinkedIn.

MRF is one of the few businesses which have mastered the art of being able to use LinkedIn strategically to reach a specific niche audience. 

MRF Tyres’ Website Development Strategies

MRF Tyre’s official website has been optimized by embedding 60 technologies to ensure a smooth customer experience.

These technologies have been taken from 13 different industries like advertising, currency converters and payment systems, conversions and analytics, mobile, and so much more.

The website has been optimized for search engines. It has a desktop-first approach and facilitates easy navigation through clear and simple categories.

MRF’s website displays its vast visual inventory in an organized format, along with its international stores. The visuals are engaging and have a lot of movement in them which is great for grabbing and maintaining the attention of the consumers.

The filters are highly versatile and flexible, which contributes to a hassle-free and enjoyable customer experience.

Overall, MRF Tyres has a well-rounded and highly optimized website which is great for improving its online visibility, generating leads, and increasing revenue.

MRF Tyres’ SEO Strategies

Optimizing your website with updated & correct information is the best approach to improving your online visibility, ranking, and reach. And the process of doing that is SEO. Search Engine Optimization refers to website optimization to improve its ranking on search engines and increase visibility and online presence.

It helps generate organic traffic and adds credibility and transparency to any business. SEO also helps with quality lead generation and conversions. It is a great cost-effective strategy to improve the growth of your business.

The top traffic source to mrftyres.com is Organic Search traffic, driving 78.47% of desktop visits last month, and Direct is the 2nd with 17.6% of traffic.

MRF Tyre’s Authority Score is 45 with organic search traffic for March 2024 is 487K, which has increased by 8.3% compared to last month (Desktop). This indicates a highly optimized online presence.

MRF records 21.5K backlinks from over 2.1K referring domains, which shows its authority online.

On average, MRF’s website receives 96% of its audience from India with over 146.2k visits a month for an average duration of 2.36 minutes each. They occupy the 29th position in the country concerning online shopping and the marketplace.

Having said this, MRF Tyre’s bounce rate is rather high, with 44.2% of its visitors leaving the site after surfing through only 1 page.

MRF Tyres needs to update its website further to ensure it always ranks first when its name is searched, regardless of any new updates that happen in the search engine. Its goal should be to become a more SEO-friendly website. 

MRF Tyres is unique in the sense that 100% of its traffic is organic, and the brand has optimized its keyword database with over 27,799 keywords to help with its ranking. MRF, MRF tyres, MRF India, MRF premium tyres, and MRF careers are the top 5 searches that drive traffic to their website. Other keywords include tyres near me, premium tyres, and similar words in the group.

MRF tyres’ organic keyword strategy is quite commendable, 45.2% of its organic keywords are transactional and give them business, followed by 31.9% informational keywords for educating the audience, 16% commercial & 6.9% navigational organic keywords.

MRF Tyres need to make an engaging and highly interactive content marketing strategy and social media strategy that promotes its brand and hence makes it more memorable.

Overall, they have the potential to optimize their presence further to help with better lead generation and conversions also thereby improving their bounce rate and retargeting tactics.

Similar Read: Hindustan Unilever’s Digital Marketing Strategies

MRF Tyres Paid Ads Strategies

Paid ads refer to the concept of generating ad campaigns through a service provider and paying them an agreed-upon amount when their ads generate leads. It works on a commission basis.

Paid ads are great for directing quality leads and traffic to the website of any business. They are more flexible in terms of budget and concept in comparison to traditional marketing practices.

They are profitable as they have high ROI. Paid ads are measurable and bring about almost immediate results.

MRF Tyre’s paid ad strategies on various social media have helped them garner substantial clicks and, thereby, revenue. They can, however, do a much better job which will help them generate better leads.

Pay-per-click ads are placed at high-engagement areas online and on partner sites to generate high-quality leads that end in conversions. They have placed social media ads on their official account and in high-traffic areas to attract the right audience.

Most of MRF Tyre’s ad campaigns are promoted on social media and through direct marketing and hence have a wide reach.

Notable Ad Campaigns & Digital Marketing Strategies by MRF Tyre

#Digital Campaign for Revz

MRF Tyres debuted what it claims was India’s first radial for motorcycles through a unique digital marketing strategy. The tyre, known as the Revz, is part of the company’s premium NV Series and incorporates innovative tread patterns and precision-rounded profiles.

The event followed an interactive campaign built by digital firm Experience Commerce on the company website.

The campaign entailed using the web to drive engagement and inquiries for Revz, as well as “building awareness among REVZ’s devoted bikers community.”

#MRFWanderer

Released in 2017, this ad showcased the MRF tyres, which were designed especially for SUVs. The tagline of the ad was “MRF Wanderer Tyres Thread Anywhere”.

The brand roped in Virat Kohli to not just be the face of this brand but to feature in this ad film. The ad campaign shows Virat Kohli behind the wheels of an SUV with MRF wanderer tyres, driving across rocky terrain.

The video shows Virat Kohli driving the car with total trust in the MRF tyres. The campaign attempts to instil a sense of adventure in people who want to push themselves and go beyond their boundaries.

MRF Wanderer tyres are intended for those who refuse to settle for the banal and like to travel off the main path.

Virat’s Samurai tattoo and his desire for adventure were used in an extraordinary creative way by Lowe Lintas, Chennai, to express the real Wanderer spirit. The promotion appeals to individuals who seek adventure!

#Comfort Made More Comfortable

Launched in 2018 and produced by the renowned agency Lowe Lintas, the campaign was aimed at promoting MRF ZLX, the most recent line of tyres built exclusively for sedans and hatchbacks.

This tyre is specially developed to deliver excellent grip and an optimized cushioned ride, with distinctively designed lateral grooves for improved ride comfort, an edge-to-edge soft stabilizer lining, and a wide tread polymer blend for longer life.

The brand seeks to promote its offer of ‘comfort made comfier’ with this campaign.

The film depicts a delicate game of Jenga in action in a sedan travelling over difficult roads with bumps and potholes while riding on top of MRF ZLX tyres.

This finally drives home the point that a comfortable ride makes travel more enjoyable.

MRF Tyres Influencer Marketing Strategies

Influencer marketing is a profitable and trendy marketing practice. It works based on the trust and loyalty that these opinion leaders have earned which puts them alongside experts.

It reduces marketing efforts as influencers come up with creative ways to market the product, which reduces the burden of ad conceptualization on the parent company.

Lastly, it generates high-quality leads with a high chance of conversion because the audience is already engaged with the product through the influencer.

MRF Tyres has primarily used celebrities and macro influencers to publicize its products.

MRF has collaborated with multiple sportsmen. Sachin Tendulkar’s association with MRF issaid to be one of the best influencer marketing campaigns till now.

App Strategy

In the industry, MRF was also associated with Brian Lara, AB de Villiers, and Gautam Gambhir in the past. Now, MRF’s current campaigns are in collaboration with Virat Kholi, Aroor Arjun, Rajiv Sethu and other significant sports persons.

Madras Rubber Factory (MRF) Tyres E-commerce Marketing Strategies

Any strategy that is implemented to help boost the sales of your online business is called an e-commerce strategy. The main aim is to increase the online presence of your business by promoting your brand.

MRF Tyres has a good e-commerce strategy which has helped the business grow tremendously over the years. They have launched various online campaigns even during the pandemic to keep their followers engaged.

MRF’s website is fully user-friendly & search engine optimized. It has given clear automobile options in its menu for which users want any product with a filter to choose from various products available.

One of the most important e-commerce strategies which have helped MRF establish its brand value and presence in the Indian e-commerce market is how they have managed to maintain its image as a brand for the common Indian masses.

MRF Tyres New Product Launch

Passenger Car Tyres

1. MRF PERFINZA

New sizes were introduced in the premium and luxury MRF Perfinza series of tyres for Audi, BMW, Jaguar, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo cars in 245/50 ZR18, 245/40 ZR18 and 235/55 ZR17 sizes.

2. MRF MARKUS

New sizes were introduced in the premium SUV tyre brand MRF Markus for the premium SUV’s of Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Jeep, Hyundai and VW in 225/50 R18, 225/55 R18 and 235/50 R18 sizes.

3. MRF CITIBUS

MRF Citibus was introduced exclusively for the Force Traveller and Toyota Innova. The tyre delivers outstanding comfort, superior grip in all road conditions and high mileage.

Two Wheeler Tyres

1. 110/90-18 MRF MOGRIP METEOR M TT

Block pattern rear tube-type tyre developed for Royal Enfield Classic 350.

2. 110/90-10 MRF ZAPPER TL

Tubeless rear tyre for Yamaha Fascino125 BS6 scooter.

3. 110/70-12, 90/90-12, 100/80-12 MRF ZAPPER N TL

Tubeless tyre developed for Electric Scooters.

Commercial Vehicle Tyres

1. MRF SUPER MILER 99 PLUS

Steer-axle tyres with a superior compound for cooler running and higher tread mileage. Strong casing for better retreadability. Specially designed shoulder and tread for faster heat dissipation. Available in 10.00-20 and 295/95-D20 sizes.

2. MRF SUPER LUG FIFTY PLUS R

7.00-15 and 195/80 D15 tyres were launched under the Super Lug Fifty Plus R brand, improving on overall tyre life and load-carrying capability.

3. MRF SAVARI EXTRA

MRF Savari Extra is a long-life tyre for SCVs with a premium skid depth and dual tread compound for cooler running. The footprint has been optimized for even wear. The sipe-integrated 5-rib pattern delivers excellent dry and wet traction.

MRF Tyres’ Content Marketing Strategy

Content marketing refers to the concept of sharing valuable content in the form of videos, blogs, podcasts, ads, or social media posts to help keep customers engaged, attract new leads, and maintain their loyalty.

It is a cost-effective way to make a memorable presence and promote brand awareness. It also deeply reflects your brand value.

Businesses that utilize content to stay connected generate 67% more leads, and more than 47% of consumers go through the content of a business before making a purchase.

And 72% of businesses will agree that content marketing is an extremely powerful tool for generating quality leads.

The content marketing team at MRF Tyres is doing a good job of keeping their users and followers engaged.

The series called Tips to Tread anywhere featuring Virat Kohli is very popular both among Kohli and MRF fans.

MRF utilizes its content pool very efficiently to market to its ideal clientele. However, their social media pages need to be more dynamic and updated more frequently to create the right kind of impact.

MRF Tyres Organic Competitors

MRF tyres are one of the most important tyre brands in India. However, they, too have multiple competitors.

JK Tyres has the highest affinity score of 100% and hence occupies 1st place on the list. Apollo Tyres and Tyreplex have affinity scores of 93% and 87%, respectively. Bride JP & Laile occupy the 4th and 5th positions with affinity scores of 82% each.

These are the top 5 competitors and the diagram represents other organic competitors of MRF Tyres and other important factors like monthly view rate and category rank to provide a better understanding of the competitors.

Conclusion

The story of how MRF tyres attained success is one that continues to inspire many. The brand with the infamous tagline, “Tyres with muscles”, has come a long way from its humble beginning.

MRF remains the market leader in the tyres category in India due to obvious quality and planned expansion.

The tyre industry is one where there is no scope for a lot of product differentiation.

Hence, there is stiff competition from other brands. They have to maintain their prices at such a level where there is parity between them and the other brands. This is a serious challenge.

Top digital marketing institutes in India train students with live case studies, assignments, and market research to face real-life challenges brands are facing in the digital world and implement the learnings on live projects.

There is a constant need for research and development, and the brand needs to step up its presence in the world of the internet since competition is high and cutthroat.

Also, check the list of digital marketing case studies of brands:

Automobile Digital Marketing Case Studies

Reliance Jio’s Digital Marketing Strategies

Real Estate Digital Marketing Case Studies

Tanishq’s Digital marketing strategies

Tata Motor’s Digital Marketing Strategies

RedBus Digital Marketing Strategies

Asian Paints’s Digital Marketing Strategies