Quote:
Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom  Ajmat, thanks for the clarification on that.
So Ford bought it in to protect Landrover; I can see the point of that.
But I still think it has very little marketing value.
Even though I owned a Rover 620, even though I thought the 75 was a really nice car --- I still tend to associate Rover with the company my grandfather worked for, and the car he drove, fifty years ago!
But I associate MG with youth and natty sports cars. |
Rover does have an old person's image, but if Jag can overcome that with the XF then it will be just as easy for Rover. Basically TATA has 3 choices when marketing cars in Europe:
1: Use the Tata brand - a big no no because it sounds like Tatty and Tata's have a bad reputation for making cars in the UK. This would be the worst possible choice in my view.
2: Create a new brand: This may work but plenty of evidence suggests this willl take at least 10 years to make an impact in Europe. See Smart (loss making), Lexus (Jag outsells it, with cars it's getting rid of) and Ssangyong (UK Importer just went bust), Proton (who?), Kia (good cars, but it's taken 15 years to persuade the Europeans)....
3: Use the tarnished Rover brand - needs good, exciting cars to work but will make an imediate impact. Lot's of press = marketing dream. As an example it took Ssangyong years to establish hust 22 dealers in the UK. MG is relaunching with 0 dealers but 150 dealers have already registered an interest, despite the fact they only have 1 model (a low volume sportscar)!
Given the choices I think Rover is the lesser of all evils and may even be able to leverage sales off Land Rover if the product is of sufficent quality.