Hit the road

Volkswagen revs up the market with a larger-than-life brand campaign.

One move at a time is a strategy that now belongs to the past. Ask German carmaker Volkswagen which came out with 13 advertisements in a leading English daily last week. It told readers all they ever wanted to know about Volkswagen — how the name came about, its product line and so on. A slick TV commercial quickly followed. What is more, from now on until February 2010, Volkswagen will use 18,000 television spots, 144 insertions in broadsheet dailies, 50 insertions in magazines, 280 out-of-home sites and 23 digital portals. Whew!

The TV campaign shows a young starry-eyed boy in a Volkswagen showroom, looking at the Beetle. Upon seeing him, a salesperson goes over and offers help. The kid asks him if it is possible to book a car right now for his 18th birthday. Surprised, the salesperson humours the boy telling him that he can. Then, the kid tells him to book a Beetle and the salesperson congratulates his choice, explaining the virtues of the car.

Next, the lad walks across to the Jetta and says that he’d like this when he turns vice-president at the age of 24. He then goes to the wheel of the Passat and requests the car for when he becomes the CEO. Finally, they move to the Touareg, where the salesperson explains how the sports utility vehicle “dominates every road”!

At the moment, the child’s father walks in looking for him. The salesperson says that they’ve been planning his 18th birthday. The ad ends with a super that says, “German engineering, made for India.” That, according to Volkswagen, underscores its plan in India. “It is clearly more than good advertising, it is the commitment of Volkswagen to India and the Indian consumers,” says Volkswagen India Chief General Manager (marketing and public relations) Lutz Kothe.

The German car company entered the country two years ago with the Passat. Within a year, it brought the Jetta. Volkswagen though is no stranger to India. In the 1970s and 1980s, when the Indian government was looking for a partner to make an affordable car for the masses, the German car company was strongly considered. The deal however fell through and Suzuki stepped in. Post-liberalisation, it entered the country through its Skoda and Audi brands. And now it is in the market place on its own.

Gearing up
Until now, Volkswagen relied on developing dealerships to increase its presence. But with the Beetle ready to hit the road in December and the hatchback Polo coming out next year, Volkswagen was left with little choice but to up the ante. “So far we have been operating in smaller segments with our products, the Passat and Jetta. It is early next year when we enter into the volume segment with our hatchback, the Polo,” says Kothe. “In such a scenario, it is important to build the foundation of the brand to enable the company achieve its target for volume sales. Therefore, the campaign has been introduced only now and not earlier on.”

To gauge the size of this market, here are some numbers: The Indian market is expected to grow from 1.2 million cars per year to about 2 million in the next five years. Within this, the hatchback segment has been recording double-digit growth. Also, the premium hatchback has begun to gain prominence. Experts feel that of late sales figures have indicated that the premium hatchback has been faring better than the lower-priced ones. “Volkswagen means people’s car in German, and in India we will be offering a range of products starting from the volume car Polo to our premium Passat or the SUV Touareg. Nevertheless, all our car lines will always be premium yet affordable for our target groups in the respective segment,” Kothe reiterates.

Not surprisingly, the company that was earlier assembling its cars locally has finally opened its plant at Chakan in Maharshtra. Spread over 575 acres, the plant has a production capacity of 110,000 units per year, making it one of the bigger car plants in the country. At the same time, the automaker is strengthening its dealer partnerships. At present, it has 29 dealership outlets and intends to open another 11 by the end of this year. The dealerships are spread across Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities including Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Ludhiana, Noida, Kochi, Goa, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Lucknow, Rajkot, Surat and Pune.

Brand value
The genesis of the campaign though has much to do with the low brand awareness of the company’s cars in the country. Research suggested that many people did not know what the brand stood for, while some others had not heard of the brand. Indeed, as of September this year, only 2,233 Jettas and Passats have been sold, a figure shy of other foreign carmakers.

“That was one of our key concerns,” says Mudra Group Chief Creative Officer Bobby Pawar, the company’s agency. With that in mind, the brief given to Mudra was merely to raise brand awareness, while getting consumers engaged with the cars. “We wanted people to sit up and take notice,” adds Pawar. To that end, the campaign took off with a roadblock on a popular newspaper across 16 editions and nine pages. Besides television, the 360-degree campaign will include print, digital, radio and out-of-home media. Further, over the coming months, a couple of more TV commercials are likely to come on air. While the current spot focuses on the overall brand, forthcoming advertisements will be focused on products.

Meanwhile, Volkswagen’s rivals including Nissan, Ford and Toyota are drawing up plans for hatchbacks of their own and industry leaders Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai aren’t resting on their laurels either. But if Volkswagen is to be believed, the results of the grand campaign have already begun to trickle in. Within just a day of the roadblock, Volkswagen became the number one search on Google India. Team BHP, the largest Indian car forum, had a thread devoted to the launch which got as many as 2,000 hits in a matter of hours. According to sources at the car company, phones at dealerships have been ringing incessantly. Given the intense competition in the car market, how much of those will culminate into sales? That’s the moot question.