dissertation ideas.

so, not exactly if this is the right place to post this question.... oh well.

Anyway, I'm wanting to do my dissertation around marketing in the automobile industry (Just finished a years placement at Vauxhall) so it makes sense.

Anyway, I'm struggling to get a solid question/ title for my dissertation that I can really run with. A couple I found/thought of are:

The complex relationship between customer satisfaction and loyalty in the automotive industry.

The brand value of a manufacturers presence in motorsport.

Then maybe a question around the decline of the British automobile industry?

and finally maybe a question looking at sponsorship i.e. Vauxhall sponsor home nations football and has that helped? I can get this data fairly easy as its something I worked on during placement, but not sure if the information I get will merit 10,000 words. so maybe with the right question it will?

Any help would be appreciated.

Then maybe a question around the decline of the British automobile industry?

This is not my area at all. But I think a really interesting question for you to consider is the efficacy of marketing itself for car sales. You cannot talk about marking causing increased sales but it would be interesting to see if there were any correlations between marking and the number of cars sold. For example do Vauxhall sell more cars when international matches are on? It is all well and good saying lots of people watch England matches on ITV but does this actually translate into increased sales relative to other times of the year?

If this is the case are the specific effects involved: does marketing only affect car sales at a certain price point (you do not luxury cars being advertised); is marketing in car sales more or less effective than in other areas (cars seem to be marketed as products unlike other modes of transport [and while people might be swayed by marketing for inconsequential items such as washing up liquid or chocolate where it makes little or no difference it would be interesting if this applies to a 'serious' purchase like a car]); is marketing more or less effective over certain mediums (e.g. live television events such as football matches, trailers in a cinema, sponsorship of football grounds etc.); and does marketing have a saturation point where increased exposure no longer results in increased sales (e.g. if Vauxhall decided to sponsor the Premier League would they get more sales because matches are more frequent [you could look at VW's sponsorship in the German league as a comparison]), or would the curve flatten out at the top?

If you are looking at using Vauxhall as a case study then you could consider whether their sponsorship of the home nations is cost effective given the fact that they get relatively little exposure compared to say Chevrolet on the front of a Manchester United shirt. Presumably they are not paying £50 million a year to sponsor the home nations though so swings and roundabouts.

In summary you could easily write 10,000 words on this!