Mercedes-Benz marketer jumps ship for newly created position at Audi

As part of the company’s continuing transformation, Audi of America announced today the appointment of Scott Keogh as Chief Marketing Officer, a newly formed position designed to oversee all marketing strategy and department responsibilities, as well as lead the company’s marketing effort to further elevate the positioning of the Audi brand in the United States. The new position, which reports to Johan de Nysschen, executive vice president, is the latest addition to the Audi management team.

“Audi is experiencing strong growth in this market, and the strengthening of our Management Team is an important element in continuing this success,” said Johan de Nysschen, executive vice president in charge of Audi of America. “Scott will guide our marketing organization to focus on building our brand image across multiple customer touch points.”

Prior to joining Audi, Keogh, 37, worked at Mercedes-Benz USA for more than a decade. Most recently, Keogh was general manager, marketing communications, where he was responsible for developing all strategic marketing communications plans, including brand and product positioning. Previous positions at Mercedes-Benz included general manager, Smart USA where Keogh was responsible for sales, marketing, product planning and retail development for the new automotive brand. Prior to leading Smart USA, Keogh was responsible for corporate communications for MBUSA.

Keogh has a Bachelor of Arts from Hobart and William Smith Colleges in upstate New York.

EnnNorak - 5/26/2006 6:27:33 PM

+1 Boost

Audi's sales performance in North America vis-a-vis Mercedes and BMW has significantly lagged its sales performance in Europe so I'm not surprised that Audi is taking bold steps to strengthen its Marketing team in North America. I had a telephone call (a survey) from an Audi rep earlier today asking me all sorts of irrelevant questions about my satisfaction with recent Audi service and the dealer who performed it. I hope the new guy realizes that the path to increased sales is continuous and meaningful product improvement and not wasting time and money on silly surveys. The only organizations that consistently spend more time on planning than doing and silly surveys are government organizations.

dblo7 - 6/2/2006 4:24:26 PM

+1 Boost

Hmmmm now why would Audi create a new position? Oh...so they can take talent from competitors =) We'll see what happens. Didn't know MB marketing in the US was all that great. Usually the cars sell themselves.