No matter what your product is if you're a PR person, you want to generate as much hype as possible. Especially, when you're in the car biz and you have to drum up excitement starting with pre-orders, all the way through to product launch at the dealerships.
And the pressure is intense, especially when a product you introduce is going to go head to head with the company that is the MASTER of generating hype, Tesla.
But when you're desperate and you're losing mindshare by the second, you gotta give your all.
When Audi launched the e-tron in SF, we were at the launch. THEY SPENT A FORTUNE. And i have to say they did a good job building excitement. And the mainstream media bit. And bit hard.
I remember when they rolled it out and all I could think is HOW are they going to seriously challenge Tesla with a vehicle that looks like a refreshed, fifteen year old all-road?
But because of the hype in the areas where Tesla's were selling they started getting a good number of deposits. I think one of the big dealers in the Bay Area bragged they had almost 300 deposits.
But by the time the first cars rolling in, that same dealer told us that over NINETY-PERCENT of the people who put money down, CANCELLED their orders.
Now to be fair, the cars started coming in to dealers and May was the first full month on sale. USA Sales in May were 856. Then June 726. And today we found out they sold 678 in July.
So there's a clear trend here. And it's NOT a good one. At a time when the sales should be growing they are slowly declining. To be fair, it's only 3 months in, but it's not looking good.
So in YOUR opinion WHY does the Audi e-tron seem to be flopping SO quickly out of the starting gate? Do you think the trend will turn around or will it be like a slow leaking balloon going forward?
Spies, discuss...