Waiter, There's an SUV in My Coupe! Carmakers Seed SUV, AWD in All Lines

Brandweek,  April 24, 2000  by Jeff Green

Tags: Audi AG, car, sedan, SUV, Volvo

• E-mail
• Print
• Link

Consider it uptown sport/utility peer pressure. It's no longer enough that every luxury brand have at least one SUV model either in the showroom or on the way for buyers who need something more capable for those arduous commutes to the mall and soccer practice.

Now, the European luxury brands are scrambling to demonstrate how much like an SUV they can make their performance sedans. Nearly every brand at the New York Auto Show last week either had an all-wheel-drive car already, was introducing one, or was hinting that one is on the way.

Audi will fire the first shot with May 8 spots from McKinney & Silver, Raleigh, N.C., that highlight the 20-year AWD heritage borrowed from its sister Volkswagen brand, with a moody, urban vignette that shows a child playing in the rain on the way to her family's Audi sedan--demonstrating how comfortable both the child and the AWD Quattro vehicle are in the rain.

When Audi first offered AWD on its sedans in 1980, it served to differentiate it from rivals at BMW, Saab, Mercedes, Volvo and Jaguar, said Walter Hanek, Audi of America marketing director. Audi currently sells 80% of its cars in the U.S. with AWD.

Now that the AWD market is getting crowded, Audi wants to remind everyone of its history of providing the technology, he said. But it's not just about driving through snow, it's also about performance, Hanek said.

Volvo will also play the heritage card in TV ads this July for the new Cross Country AWD station wagon that explain how its harsh Swedish environment and the Scandanavian love of nature prompted the development of its technology, said Bob Austin, Volvo Cars of North America marketing communications director.

Volvo will take the SUV idea of freedom and translate it into car language in the spots from Messner Vetere Berger McNamee Schmetterer/Euro RSCG, N.Y.

"People don't want to be beat up with AWD," he said. "They want to know, 'If I have this, what's going to happen to me?'"

BMW will hitch a performance argument to its new 323xi AWD sedan, said Baba Shetty, BMW of North America marketing communications manager. "The SUV phenomenon has really raised expectations for AWD, and its a phenomenon that's now influencing car buying, too," he said.

The xi spots due this fall from Fallon McElligott, Minneapolis, will put AWD front and center in people's minds in markets where AWD is popular, traditionally the northern climates.

The show provided further confirmation that automakers are pumping most of their resources into finding truck extensions to populate every conceivable niche. Of more than a dozen never-before-seen vehicles at the show, only a handful were cars.

GM showed four new truck models, including three SUVs and a high-performance pickup, as it tries to keep the fire burning under its growing large-truck market share. Toyota rolled out the new RAV4 and all-new Highlander--meaning it's gone from barely having a respectable truck offering four years ago to now boasting the widest truck lineup in North America. It's still studying how to leverage the full-truck stable, said ad director Steve Sturm. While it may decide to highlight the range of models available, don't expect a "Toyota Country" approach in the vein of Ford's portfolio approach to truck marketing, he said.

Ford's Mazda unit soon airs a campaign for the Tribute, its first SUV, but not before it completely revamps a re-positioning intended to "elevate the brands", said Steve Odell, North American marketing and sales vp.

A May campaign from from Doner, Southfield, Mich., will abandon the cubist Mazda World theme but retain the "Get in. Be Moved" tagline against heritage cues that stress image vehicles like the Miata and RX7, he said.

Another newly unveiled SUV-type vehicle that will get heavy support later this year is the Acura MDX luxury SUV, said Tom Elliott, evp for the Honda division. Acura plans a heavy spot buy during the Olympics, despite General Motors' attempt to lock down the national campaign, and will position the vehicle above the Toyota RX300 and closer to BMW's new X5, he said.

COPYRIGHT 2000 Nielsen Business Media, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning