Haval, one of the top-performing brands in its automotive segment, faced a shifting competitive landscape as new players entered the market. The challenge wasn't building awareness from scratch, it was identifying where the brand's existing customer experience had gaps, before competitors could exploit them and erode its market position.

The approach prioritized primary research at scale to find blindspots in the current customer journey, rather than assuming the brand's existing success meant there was nothing left to improve.

The strategy included:

Customer journey mapping built on direct research across multiple stakeholder groups (customers, dealership staff, management) to surface gaps that wouldn't show up in sales data alone

Segmentation analysis to identify whether different customer groups were being served equally well

Gap identification across the existing customer journey to find where the brand was vulnerable to newer competitors

A marketing strategy spanning digital engagement, dealership branding, and customer touchpoints, reinforcing strengths and closing gaps before they became a real threat

Conducted customer journey mapping through 284 surveys, 30 in-depth interviews, 10 dealership interviews, and 6 management interviews

Built customer segmentation with gap identification to clarify where the brand was underserving specific buyer groups

Delivered a comprehensive marketing strategy covering digital engagement, dealership branding, and customer touchpoint optimization

Shifted the brand's marketing approach toward a customer-centric model to protect its competitive position as new entrants emerged

This project shows the ability to do strategic work for a market leader, not just a challenger brand. The aim was to find where an already-successful business was vulnerable, before competition made that vulnerability costly. That's a different, often harder kind of analysis than building a strategy from zero, since the gaps aren't obvious from the outside.

A full customer-centric marketing strategy built on 320+ survey and interview touchpoints, designed to help a market-leading brand close customer experience gaps and protect its competitive edge as new players entered the category.

Tools: Survey Research, Customer Segmentation, Market Research, Google Colab, Python, Canva (presentation)