the marketing of no marketing
Hi class,
I came across an article couple of weeks ago about how Kia is trying to save some money in marketing with the hope of creating a buzz in their new Kia Rondo. And I’d like to say that this move will probably be unsuccessful...
First of all, I would like to ask how many of you are familiar with the brand, Kia? (It’s different from Ikea)... I think people know this brand exists, but has little knowledge about this particular brand. Just to give a brief background, Kia is a Korean automobile manufacturer and its main competitors are the low-end American cars (e.g., Saturn and Chevrolet).
Their new Kia Rondo is available but the automakers do not want anybody to know anything about this. The new Rondos are being delivered to most dealerships but they won’t officially be "out" until February 2007. Right now, there are no print ads or broadcast spots. Their Kia website has also no mention about the new Rondo. Instead, over the next 30 days, there will only be some direct mail to targeted consumers, a presence on several search engines and, hopefully, some buzz.
I actually find their approach unusual. Unusual: not in a good sense. Maybe this approach is very common in the luxury segment but this approach is very unusual for a brand that is positioned as one of the low-end, most competitive consumer segments in the auto industry. I think Kia also is one of the lowest future considerations among auto buyers today. A luxury well known brand will be able to create buzz easily, but I don’t know about Kia...
At the same time, Kia’s target demographic are the young singles and couple with household income of $75k and up, but if we think about it, won’t these buyers be more or less be searching for information about cars online if they want to purchase one? How will they get more information about the new Rondo if there is no information about it anywhere? How is Kia going to get word of mouth going?
Hence, I think their marketing of no marketing will not be successful. People have little knowledge about Kia and for people to create WOM or buzz, I think it is impossible. It would be totally different if this buzz approach was for Mercedes or BMW.
If you would like to read more, this is the website about Kia’s unsual approach...
http://www.brandweek.com/bw/news/autos/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003438729
- Joanne Cahyadi
posted by Brand007 @ 8:52 AM
2 Comments:
Thats definitely a risky move by Kia. I agree that luxury cars are able to get away with less advertising and more reliance on word of mouth. For lower-end cars, this may not be the case.
However, this case is different and I think I understand what Kia is going for. Kia, as you mentioned, is known to highlight price over quality and can be considered a lower-end car. This is exactly why they want to avoid advertising this car. I read a quick review from this site
http://www.autoblog.com/2006/11/25/kia-rondo-found-and-reviewed/
and it mentioned that this car is a step up from their previous cars. The engine is more powerful than its direct competitors, it has a more spacious interior than its competitors, and it is even more fuel efficient than its competitors.
By advertising this car on TV as a Kia, people will automatically discard it as a cheap bad car when in fact it might actually be good. Instead, they would rather mail potential consumers, have these people take a look at the car, and have them spread the word that Kia has actually produced a quality car.
I personally wouldn't believe Kia if they produced an ad saying that this car is superior than their competitors. I'd have to hear it from an actual consumer.
-John Lewis
It seems that Kia is going the route of Hyundai... trying to build more quality into their cars to improve their brand image. The motives are right, but their execution is flawed. Perhaps a better strategy would be to create exciting car ads that show the performance of the vehicle, without showing who the manufacturer is... just tell people to go to a website (again w/no mention of Kia in the web address) where they will then see that it's a new Kia. That may give people a chance to let the quality of the car sink into their minds before a consumers previous brand attitudes concerning Kia can undermine their new efforts.
~Mandy Murphy
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