Ambitious Audi needs to crack America

I, too, loved my black-on-black 2000 A6 2.7T, and I love my new car even more. But, like people have said, they need better (and more) marketing. Although the "Audi has no image in the US" debate is overblown (and Audi does have a premium image here), if they want people to notice that their cars are up to the par that is BMW and Mercedes, they need the VW marketing team that made the GTI ads, or at least the Toy/Lex marketers! The new Yaris ads (as well as the Fit ads) are priceless. I love the one with the Yaris sedan and hatch throwing obstacles at each other.

This is a sad article, but I don't understand how the sales forcaster could possibly see Audi sales going down in 2012 for any reason, especially with the barrage of new models coming by then. I think they could even double their current US output by 2015, but that's agressive.

I also don't think Cadillac will outsell Mercedes as this lunatic says.

note
"Audi remains remarkably independent from VW group in terms of manufacturing, engineering and distribution. Apart from (China) the limited A3 assembly in Belgium and Q7 production in Bratislava (Slovakia), there are no other instances of VW and Audi making cars in the same factory. VW offers Audi cost advantages, but brings revenue and strategic disadvantages," said Jonas."

so audi is quite independent from vw.

first they should change their signature silver color to whatever looks best on the model being advertised like imola yellow for rs4 and the brilliant red for s4 and stuff like that. they should also change their plans for a7 or a5 and make one of them a hardtop roadster because that will sell much more than a softtop, think would mercedes SL-class be as high a seller if it were coupe and softtop models

That forecaster has straw for brains. He/she probably doesn't know jack squat about cars. He/she probably just looked at the last ten years of sales and thought that history will repeat again. Without even thinking about the brand new Audis to come out in the next couple of years. Yes, it is true that Audi spent the least on advertising last year with under 100 million dollars. This only proves that clever ads and not quality product sells here. For proof look at Lexus and BMW. (clever advertising gives the two brands a "percieved" advantage over the competiton, while the products themselves are either average or slightly better than the competition) Also, the article says that the new TT will do 0-60 in 5.9 seconds, Audi itself says that it will do it in 5.7 (the article probably used the times from the old TT) while it will actually probably in the end do it in 5.5 (or under) seconds.

Also, the other forcaster said that Audi will beat its own forecasts. However, the article decided to use the one that "puts" Audi down as the main forecaster. The first step to prove the CSM "forecasters" is to get more than 88,289 sales. I sure hope that Audi will be able to accomplish that. Go out and buy them.

These facts from the detroit free press is exactly what I am talking about, I checked audi's US sales last month because of all the great things people post on autospies, only 387 a8's, 777 a7's audi may sell 82,000 cars this year big deal. Volvo does more than that. Maybe in 20 to 25 years from now maybe audi will rival BMW and Mercedes in the states.

Audi already outsells BMW and MB in Germany.

diablo69-

Audi could market itself as BOTH. Audi is considered to be "Intelligent Luxury", because, without much compromise, it offers both a sporty demeanor and a class-leading interior in one package throughout their lineup. Which leaves me to question why people have a BMW and a Mercedes, when you can have a car that has both characteristics in one. They may not be quite as sporty as BMW, but they're more luxurious than Mercedes.

This only proves that clever ads and not quality product sells here. For proof look at Lexus and BMW. (clever advertising gives the two brands a "percieved" advantage over the competiton, while the products themselves are either average or slightly better than the competition)

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Advertising turns people on products. That's it. The product has to be good. They have to want to buy the product. Advertising does not brainwash people into buying Lexus or BMW. If Audi cannot or will not advertise to the American public, how can the American public know they exist? Let's not get into sour grapes arguments about how gullible people are when Audi -- by everyone's admission -- has not put forth a message to get anyone interested.

"The Q7. From the makers of quattro."

This is not a slogan to set the world on fire.

I agree Audi's marketing for the Q7 sucks--it does not convey the true greatness of that SUV. Audi has no idea how to make effective marketing.

I remember one ad for the A6, and at the end it said "test drive one today". WTF

To me, Audi's image in the US isn't up there yet with BMW and Mercedes.

Their products are superior, but the image is simply lacking. If you're going to spend big money, you want to spend it on something with prestige (usually).

BMW530i, thankfully there are enough people in this country who DON'T want to use their hard-earned money to buy themselves some cheap prestige in the form of a $5 rondel. You tell us how you bought your BMW used and that you're a regular guy and not a snob, but then you use prestige again (whatever that is, how much you can impress people?) as the deciding factor in buying an expensive automobile.

Let's watch you
a) pull my words into the top of your next post
b) back away from prestige and start talking about "heritage" which you can twist into "quality" and "superior engineering"

There are 75% of luxury buyers who don't want the kind of prestige BMW offers. BMW iteslf admits this. Methinks people like the car, but don't want to be confused with being a BMW driver, which we know is such a hot thing. They must not be able to handle it. :)

ALL YOU PEOPLE GO OUT AND BUY YOURSELF A NEW AUDI, because if audi advertises itself to the point where noone will doubt it is one of the best premium car makers, you will bang your head until you crack it. Why?? -because as soon as it happens they will increase the prices as they did in Europe.

Maybe Audi just decided to concor Europe first, then Asia, and with any luck US is next on the list

crackityjones,

???

I said Audi's image isn't up there yet with BMW or Mercedes in the eyes of many Americans. It's an observation and various magazines comment on it as well. Audi's image is growing internationally and in the US, but as of now, I personally along with many others don't think of them as being in the same league with Mercedes and BMW IMAGE-WISE. And like I said, technology-wise, Audi is definitely up there with BMW and MB.

Second, I bought my E39 BMW 5-series used because it was a low-mileage model and had all the things I wanted. I was looking first and foremost for a sporty sedan that was fun to drive. The E-Class and A6 from that era didn't cut it for me. Nice cars but comfort oriented.

Prestige to me is important, but I didn't buy my BMW because of the badge, that was rather down on the list of why I bought my 530i. It was fun, handled well and it was safe. Moreover, being used, it was affordable and the condition wasn't shabby at all seeing that the owner only drove it for 9 months.

huu76,

Audi should make Quattro standard. Just like Subaru, it'll separate them from the pack. Perhaps only leaving it optional on the A3 and A4 (leave prices the same, drop prices for FWD models).
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Won't work in Europe. The price increase is significant and most Europeans aren't too concerned about FWD, RWD or AWD. To my knowledge, aren't all Audi's in the US AWD? I am too lazy to check the Audi website out.

Crackity Jones, image wise Audi is up there with BMW and MB.

If you pull up in an Audi R8, no one will think oh, you must be poor beccause you aren't driving a BMW or a MB.

Likewise if you pull up in an RS4, people won't think oh your not as rich as someone in an M3 or C55.

So, yes, image wise Audi is on par with BMW and MB.

What other image can you possibly me talking about?

Anyone ever seen the Audi channel on Sky? Anynody ever watched the bmwfilms.com series? I think that says a lot about the two brands.

About 8 months ago, I had the priviledge of sitting down with one of the head marketing people from Audi Germany and discussed this very topic at length. In fact it wasn't a single meeting but several over the course of a few weeks. We covered many topics pertaining to marketing the brand in the US and here are some thoughts from those discussions:

With only 80K or so sales in the US, there will not be the required budget for the huge brand awareness campaign we would all like to see. Audi must start small and target specific audiences of "influence". They are mostly looking for ways to stay within the current budget and simply make changes to have more impact.

One of the things Audi has been doing lately is product placement in summer blockbuster movies such as "I-Robot" and "Transporter II". While I agreed that those movies were indeed successful and helped promote the brand, they didn't translate to any notable sales increase at the dealer level. I suggested something perhaps a little more subtle. Instead of showing A8's that can jump tall buildings and deflect bullets, why not show an Audi in it's natural environment as a cameo in several films? The cost per film would certainly be less and the subliminal message would probably have more of an impact. Whenever you see a vehicle in a film, music video, commercial, or TV show, some manufacturer paid to put it there. When a film calls for a luxury car to pull up in front of a mansion, restaurant, or any upscale building, make it an Audi instead of giving that spot to MB or BMW. Sometimes, TV commercials about makeup or clothing can feature models getting out of vehicles. Make it the new A4 convertible or TT the next time. It's called shared advertising and can sometimes be very effective and efficient cost wise.

Brochures: They have always been a pet peave of mine. Why put a small photo of the coolest looking version of the car (such as the S-line) as an afterthought in the back of the book? Why not put that photo on the cover, as large as possible? The 2007 brochures sort of address this by featuring the S-line version or the S version of the car on the cover this time. The S-line package photos are also larger and in some cases take up to 2 pages. The other little thing I suggested they do apparently didn't sink in. Audi has some of the largest trunks in the industry. BMW and MB have been successfully marketing themselves to golfers for years. Sometimes they do it in a big way by sponsoring some major chanpionship event, (very expensive) and sometimes subliminally such as showing an open trunk of a car in the brochure with a set of golf clubs in it! Some go so far as to provide a little diagram on the underside of the trunk lid to show you how multiple bags can be stowed. Audi does none of this and I'm not sure why.

Pop culture has done tremendous things for vehicle brands such as Bentley and Cadillac. MB and BMW have also had their share of exposure on mu

Interesting input. However, I still think Audi isn't aggressively attacking the market as they should--Audi seems to have a passive philosophy, kind of like the scared, beaten step-child when it comes to reaching out to the consumer.

I'd say increase annual marketing to atleast $250 million, focus on one attribute, and find out who does the Lexus ads.

They say they don't have budget for a more elaborate marketing campaign but unless more money is spent, you can't expect a sales increase. So if the ultimate goal is more sales, money has to be spent.

BMW530i-

The A3 2.0T is only available with FWD, but the amazing engine/DSG combo make up for it.

The A4 sedan models are both standard with FWD, but not the Avants.

The A6 3.2 was standard with quattro when it came out, but they have recently made it standard with FWD, for what reason is beyond me. The A6 sells in overwhelmingly quattro configurations.

Everything else is standard with quattro, including the A3 3.2 and A6 Avant.

Neverfollow ... do you work for Audi's ad agency? That's a great opportunity to be able to speak with Audi in Germany.

Unfortunately, I think Audi is being way too conservative--based on your information. What you're saying they're saying is borne out by their anemic ad presence in America.

However, it isn't just the low budget Audi has to concern itself with. The BMW Mini campaign wasn't hugely funded--but it was wildly creative.

No offense if you work for McKinney Silver, but the Audi work is not very creative. I'm sure your creative teams agree! They must be a tough client and very traditional.

There is so much potential to create great Audi advertising. (The A3 "Art of the Heist" campaign was pretty good--but it was a sort of promotion and not a sustainable multi-year idea.) Until Audi gets competitive with its marketing, it can continue to see only incremental growth in the US market. You've gotta pay to play in the USA.

AUDIMAN4-

Lexus ads today aren't anything special; it was the messages they had early in the brand's years that propelled it to the top.

However, VW's current advertisers are quite interesting. From "unpimp ze auto" to the new Rabbit ads, VW has always been good at it. The Toyota Yaris ads are pretty good, too.

Neverfollow, interesting post, i agree i think a marketing plan like that plus the current and future planned products will equal success.

I do not work for McKinney Silver. If I did, I would try to lead them in a different direction. I don't know if any of you remember the Honda ads from the late 1980's and early 1990's. They were some of the most creative and artistic campaigns I'd ever seen. Most of you probably don't remember the mock up they did of the B2 Stealth bomber that no one had yet seen. (They sort of guessed what it looked like.) Anyway, the CRX ran around it's landing gear and the ad implied that the car snuck up on it's competitors much like the B2 does on it's enemies. America was shocked and amazed that the USAF would loan the never before seen B2 for use in a car commercial. It was all over the news papers and quite the topic of conversation around the water cooler soon after it aired. Immediatly after Honda released THAT commercial, the USAF officially revealed the aircraft to the public, absolute genius! There was another one that sort of played on the old Fred Astaire dance flick where he dances from the floor to the walls to the ceiling and eventually back to the floor. In the Honda ad, an Accord appears to be hanging on the wall of an art gallery. Eventually, someone from the crowd decides to check out the inside and goes from the floor to the driver's seat, a 90 degree change in position. After checking it out for a while he eventually drives it right off of the wall. This was well before the age of modern digitization so it was done the old school way. They put the set in a cylinder and rotated it just like the old Fred Astaire film. I'm not saying that those adds would still work in todays market, but the creativity behind them is sorely missing. At this point, (and I suggested this) I would be happy if they just showed the public a feature of the car, and how it would benefit someone in every day life. I also told them to stop filming the cars in the desert and in cityscape. Park the thing in front of a 5 star hotel or restaurant and make the message clear.

Part of the problem with the US is that the vast majority of the public does not know how or where to place the product in their minds. Is it a true luxury product worthy of our aspirations, or is it a value product along the lines of the Asian luxury brands? Most people in the US have never visited an Audi dealership EVER, while some others have not been in 20 years or more. People don't generally know that the brand has reinvented itself in the past 8 years. Somehow they found out about Bentley, Maserati, and Lamborghini, three brands that have risen from the dead in recent years. Maybe MTV, or "desperate housewives" had something to do with that. One would think, since Audi owns two of those three, they would have paid attention at some point.

neverfollow, i think desperate housewives probably gave maserati a huge amount of appeal, thanks to eva longoria.
in britain, it will have increased the 300Cs prescence (bree drives one). they havn't advertised that much, but it turns heads a lot and i see quite a few, more than i expected.
mtv increased rolls-royce's and bentley's profile, as well as cadillac's an mercedes'. (the escalade and sl are featured often, as are the phantom and conti GT).

Audis are really nice cars with some the best interiors, noteworthy handling, and pretty good "defects" numbers. Their exterior styling is thoroughly contemporary, fresh, and individual.

But to their detriment, they have a presence that is similar to that of a Lexus. To my eyes, Audi's sin is creating cars that look okay, but fall short of being gorgeous.

Mercedes, on the other hand, has gorgeous cars like the CLK convertible, and they say "I have arrived". Unfortunately, you'll be making that statement frequently, each you arrive at the garage for servicing.

It's always something, isn't it?