CASE STUDY
Canoo
Jump-starting a new electric vehicle brand
Challenge
Canoo was founded to answer this question: How can we simplify urban life by reimagining mobility in cities?
However, as the demographics of America’s cities continue to evolve, Canoo’s innovative business model needed to target the right urban consumers directly. Prophet was brought in to lead an agile and iterative process before, during and after the initial vehicle “reveal.”
Solutions
Through thorough research into electric car marketing and customer subscription preferences, Prophet identified six potential customer archetypes.
In a 10-week span, Prophet tested attitudes on a yet-to-be-released product, leveraging its market insights and innovative strategy capabilities to develop a robust segmentation strategy.
With deep customer insights in hand, we prioritized a target – 6 percent of the market – with the highest likelihood to buy an electric vehicle subscription. This target was developed based on attitudes around technology adoption, car-sharing and the ability to pay, among other dimensions.
Results
The Canoo product launch was met with overwhelmingly positive reviews and press coverage, anchored by a deep understanding of the brand’s customer target and position in the mobility-as-a-service ecosystem.
Canoo followed this up by using our segmentation targeting and typing tool to gamify and fuel a dynamic waitlist experience.
This experience continues to build excitement for the brand, while informing key business decisions about vehicle design, membership features, pricing tiers and marketing strategy.