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4meezy
B5four
Joined: 12 May 2004
Posts: 2656
Location: pittsburgh pa
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 Posted: Thu May 10, 2007 7:28 pm Post subject: "Is It Now or Never for Audi? |
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Saw this article on TCL, it's a decent read:
| TCL wrote: | After years of playing catch-up, the German carmaker unveils a new marketing strategy that it hopes will finally earn it the respect and sales it deserves
Despite Audi's presence in the U.S. market since the 1960s, it has little brand recognition, consumer awareness, or purchase consideration beyond the "autoscenti" of Car & Driver subscribers and European ex-pats who well know Audi's reputation for tailored luxury cars and sure-footed all-wheel drive.
But fortunes have been changing for Audi. Sales in the U.S. have climbed from a paltry 14,000 in 1995 to 90,100 last year. This year, the company expects to top 100,000. And the German brand, a unit of Volkswagen, has put together a lineup of luxury and performance cars that for the first time can go head-to-head with BMW (BMWG), DaimlerChrysler's (DCX) Mercedes-Benz, and Toyota's (TM) Lexus.
Audi managers are quite sure of the quality of their hardware. And the company, with a feeling that the time to make a move is now or never, is launching a new campaign from its new ad agency with a pretty modest goal. "We have to popularize and energize the brand," says Scott Keogh, chief marketing officer for Audi of America (he joined the company last year following several years at Mercedes-Benz).
Limited Attention
Such a goal sounds either trite or childishly simple, as if Keogh doesn't understand how sophisticated marketing has become. But sometimes the simple answers are correct: Audi just isn't on enough buying lists, and not enough people know Audi or its products. Keogh is betting if the new ad campaign succeeds at making more people curious about the brand, then the actual product will close the sale.
He's up against a problem he recognizes from his days at Mercedes. According to Keogh, most buyers have an attention span that allows for only three brands from each industry. In the luxury-car business, it's Mercedes, BMW, and Lexus. "And everybody else," says Keogh. Having sold a little more than 90,000 vehicles last year, compared with 302,000 for Lexus and 248,000 for Mercedes, Audi isn't likely to crack the top three anytime soon. So, to grow by double digits annually for the next five years, the company's goal is to expand the club to four brands. The way to do that, Keogh says, is by being more clever with a much smaller ad budget than his competitors.
Take TV ads that break May 7 and run for a week, featuring the TT Roadster in spots that only last 0.2 seconds. Huh? The ads run at hyper-speed within a 15-second ad, and are meant to prompt viewers to replay the commercial on their digital video recorders (DVR) at a slower speed. Audi says about 65% of its target audience has a DVR at home. The 0.2 seconds is significant—it's the amount of time required for the TT Roadster to shift from one gear to another. When the ad is played back at the slower speed, a series of images goes by showing that the gear-shifts happen faster than a snakebite or the formation of a raindrop.
Mystery Message
The technique isn't brand-new. Coca-Cola (KO) and General Electric (GE) have also utilized DVR technology to try to get viewers to watch an ad instead of skip over it. The gimmick will be employed throughout the year for some of Audi's other models as well.
If Audi's new ad agency, San Francisco-based Venables Bell & Partners, gets a handle on the DVR technique, it could increase viewership of its client's ads. The idea, says Keogh, is to change the content in the slowed-down version of the ad in order to keep it fresh and to keep people curious about what might be added.
"It's a little of the mystery that people will come to appreciate, like playing the Beatles' 'White Album' backward to hear the message," he says. The agency will have to jazz up the content of the slowed-down versions, though, if they expect people to go to the trouble.
These first ads are fair, but they aren’t interesting enough to sustain the strategy over the long haul.
The End of an Identity Crisis
Audi's new ad slogan, around which it's building its new communications efforts, is "Truth in Engineering." It replaces the decade-old "Never Follow." Associating Audi with engineering is meant to ground the brand as a serious German engineer in the minds of luxury-car buyers.
For decades in Europe, Audi was viewed as the car of a suburban lawyer or banker. It was almost a German Buick. It didn't help that its cars were, and still are, engineered as front-drive cars in a home market that prefers rear-drive Mercedes and BMW cars. But in recent years, the company has enhanced both styling and performance to become a more serious player.
"From a product standpoint, pound for pound, no question Audi can hold its own with Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Lexus," says Dennis Keene, a branding consultant. "But it has far less social currency among those buyers than the more established brands," Keogh admits. "We have been missing the public prestige."
Audi's focus-group research indicates that hardcore buyers of Mercedes, Lexus, and BMW are interested in Audi. But the brand's lack of identity stands in their way of making a purchase. It also used to be that Audi dealers were among the lowest profile showrooms in their markets. Audi now has 100 exclusive showrooms, up from about 70 five years ago. And quality, also a bugaboo for Audi, has been improving. The brand is now ranked above the industry average by J.D. Power & Assoc., though it still lags industry leader Lexus by a wide margin.
Safety Net
Besides the TT Roadster ads, Audi is also launching a TV campaign for the A4 Sedan, which takes a pot-shot at one of the company's nemesis brands, Lexus. The A4 ad shows a quiet street with a parking space open between two other cars. The A4 rips down the street, and screeches and slides into the parking place. The tagline of the ad—"The luxury car for people who can park themselves"—is meant as a knock against Lexus's parking-assist technology, which several car reviewers have criticized for operating inconsistently. Despite the disclaimer on the A4 ad advising viewers not to try the same stunt, I predict the ad doesn't run for long before driving safety advocacy groups force it off the air.
Ironically, another new spot is all about safety. The ad plays up Audi's top-notch crash ratings from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and Audi's well-known Quattro all-wheel drive system, which is in 88% of all Audis sold in the U.S. The ad cleverly shows a series of people talking to the camera about how they're minutes away from being in a serious accident. It's a weird but effective device that underscores the idea that they're going out into the world in an Audi despite knowing they are headed for an accident.
Audi, many will recall, was almost forced from the U.S. market 20 years ago, following published reports that its cars were prone to accelerate out of control. The charges were proven unfounded, but the publicity around the lawsuits and accusations were enough to sink the brand for more than a decade.
The company lost a lot of momentum and traction in the aftermath, just as BMW, Lexus, and Mercedes were gearing up to surge through the 1990s. But Audi looks primed to catch up. This year, it launches the all-new TT Roadster, the R8 Super Roadster, and the A5/S5 Coupe, and it will bring out seven more new models over the next two years. Keogh is under pressure to make sure all these new models get as much traction in the marketplace as AS Audi’s well-known Quattro system. |
Original article
Last edited by 4meezy on Thu May 10, 2007 8:21 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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DJLDog
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Joined: 14 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Thu May 10, 2007 7:56 pm Post subject: |
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the TT is not selling wheel they priced worng and the packages are retarded , like the A3 , you can't get the 2.0 T FSI in manual quattro.
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4meezy
B5four
Joined: 12 May 2004
Posts: 2656
Location: pittsburgh pa
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| Posted: Thu May 10, 2007 8:15 pm Post subject: |
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The A6 sales are in the gutter, I think they move around 300 units now per month, MB and BMW move 3500-5000 units of their E & 5ers per month. same story with the A8
When it first came out in 05 they were at around 1500 per month. I guess the Q7 seems to be cannabilizing other Audi sales?
I don't know how their over all USA sales are up over last year. |
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DJLDog
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| Posted: Thu May 10, 2007 8:33 pm Post subject: |
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I think the A4 always kept Audi up there . pretty hard to beat a compact luxury sedan with AWD , fuel efficient , plenty of power ,interior refinement it looks so freaking good. If one day they terminate the A4 th
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4meezy
B5four
Joined: 12 May 2004
Posts: 2656
Location: pittsburgh pa
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| Posted: Thu May 10, 2007 8:38 pm Post subject: |
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| DJLDog wrote: | | pretty hard to beat a compact luxury sedan with AWD , fuel efficient , plenty of power ,interior refinement it looks so freaking good. |
True Story.
I keep wanting to put mine up for sale and get something else, but I don't want to give up the AWD + kick A$$ gas mileage, and this car has costed me next to nothing to own. |
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