[AMG Power]

Originally Posted by boniver

I'll pay you the price of an i20 and you give me a Hector with all the "bells and whistles". Fair?

No way!! I like any car that's got INTERNET INSIDE written on the side.

[Sk8r]

I have voted for no :

1) When they bought the tangible assets of the brand, they also have ownership of the intangible assets of the brand and have full rights to use it as they do now !

2) I believe it's partly the buyers mistake to not do full research when you shell out 20 big ones and are not satisfied by it !

3) If someone had purchased the car knowing the Chinese background, they fell for the package - The price, features and other bells and whistles

I will conclude saying it is not to be considered as cheating but Tactical marketing to sell your product !

[sibot]

Originally Posted by civic-sense

"caveat emptor"

the principle that the buyer alone is responsible for checking the quality and suitability of goods before a purchase is made.

It's the buyers job to know what he is buying. Companies say whatever they want for selling their products. It's your job to verify the claims. If you got fooled for not doing your homework, you are the sole person to blame.

I don't think caveat emptor applies when there is blatant misrepresentation by the seller.

The law does not side with someone who misrepresents facts. The consumer is expected to be ordinarily diligent but is not expected to be Sherlock Holmes when buying a product.

[superbad]

Originally Posted by OSH

I have a feeling that a lot of BHPians are not understanding the actual reason for all this hatred that is being shown towards MG India. It is not about its chinese origin or badge engineering but it is about the fact that MG India is cheating us by selling us a chinese car while maliciously making us believe that it is british. Think of it, why didn't SAIC have the guts to launch the car under the other brand names like Baojun/Wuling ? Because one google search and "chinese" "chinese" "chinese" would have appeared everywhere. The truth is that MG India has tried to hide its current chinese origin by using the old brand name; MG.

I don't understand why people have brought Apple, Volvo/VW etc into this discussion. None of these companies are selling you their product by faking its identity. The iphone is produced in China but Apple is not sticking its logo on some chinese phone and selling it to you by telling you that this phone is an iphone. So in this case, an iphone is still an iphone. When you are buying a Volvo, you are still getting a Volvo, the company can be owned by anyone but it is not selling you some other car by telling you that this is a Volvo.

Now think of what MG India is doing, it is selling you a Baojun/Wuling by telling you that it a MG, so in this case, the MG is 'not' actually an MG. This is the reason why a lot of members on the forum, including me are pissed off.

MG India is clearly playing dirty with us, just look at the screenshots of the website posted by another member few posts back, the MG Hector has nothing of that british heritage that they are showing on the website. The real MG died long time back.

More simple explanation ? MG Hector is just like the TVs from Kodak/Polaroid; chinese products slapped with brand names bought by them which have some recall value. If people still don't get the point, I don't know how someone will explain this to them.

Looks like everyone likes to play with us Indians, our own homegrown manufacturer with more that 50% of the market share kept playing with us for many many years by providing unsafe cars which we are happily driving around in. Now its time that this Chinese manufacturer plays with us. I have to say this though, "Sahi khel gaye, MG".

I cannot explain anything more than this and don't wish to indulge in any debate here. If something is wrong in the post please correct me, I won't mind.

- How is it cheating if people have all the resources to check about the ownership of the brand? How is it cheating for a company to use a brand it legally owns? Your entire premise of MG faking a product is flawed, it's called badge engineering & is prevalent the world over.
- Even if MG was selling me a Bajoun/Wuling, what's wrong with that? How do you know that MG itself would've designed & manufactured the car any better?
- What is the "real MG"? The brand itself has gone through a dozen ownerships in its long history. Pray tell me, which one of these was "real"?
- To counter your Apple/Volvo point, fyi, Apple is actually sticking it's name on a Chinese phone manufactured by Foxconn under contract. Now should we raise hell that Apple is rebranding & selling us a Chinese phone?

[bbhavan]

The buyer needs to do some research and find out the company history and brand value. If the product is directly rolled out from the erstwhile plant and designed by the original team, then it's ok. The change in ownership can affect the build quality in a big way depending on the owner's prerogative.
Spending good amount on a new product and that too coming from a Chinese company, is a bold statement by any standards.

[Asish_VK]

BMW is doing the same thing with Rolls-Royce and VW with Bentley,
Why cant SAIC do that with MG ? After all they have bought the company including the brand name (correct me if I am wrong)

If the product is good, people will buy irrespective of the badge. The badge and marketing may help to attract people to the product. But the quality of product will be the decisive factor.

[digitalnirvana]

Originally Posted by landcruiser123

I don't see anything wrong here. SAIC has paid MG for all the branding rights. Similar cases I can think of:
*HMD global paid for licensing and branding of Nokia. Nobody knew of HMD global. Their phones suddenly became Nokia branded, emotionally connected with everyone and they are doing fairly well.
*

HMD global is a Finnish company same as Nokia and essentially the same people who were behind Nokia mobile phones in the first place. It is absolutely no comparison with MG & SAIC, and in fact proves the point some of us are trying to make instead.

You can read up on HMD global. The very first line of Wikipedia says

HMD is headquartered in Espoo, Finland, and is largely run by former Nokia executives.[10] The first CEO was Arto Nummela, a Nokia veteran for 17 years, until July 2017 when President Florian Seiche took over as CEO.[11]

[Gildarts]

Cheating is too strong a word for this scenario. It is unfair to accuse SAIC of cheating. But the question is about fooling Indian customers. IMHO, I think fooling is more or less accurate description of SAIC's marketing strategy with MG Hector in India. Their MG brand anthem, flagship showrooms with British theme are all purposely engineered to bury the fact that MG hector is a car designed and manufactured in China under loads of Mumbo-Jumbo about British Heritage. They even named the design theme as "The Queen's necklace"

[DPetrolHead]

I would like to clear some views for both the sides of the debate, since I will be an indirect owner of this car in a couple of days.

My brother was looking for an SUV for quite a while and had almost decided on the Creta but things changed as I bought one before him. One day he called me to come along with him to have a look at the MG Hector. Obviously I had heard about the car with its bang on pricing and brimming with tech and features by then.

But I, being a BHPian did my research and found out about the reality of the brand, which is nothing but a marketing gimmick. I tried to convince my brother that this is a Chinese car with a British brand just slapped on it but he, like most other Indians probably, said that it is actually a British brand "acquired" by a Chinese company SAIC. After a little debate we went on to test drive the car.

This is where my mindset changed. If one sees the car in flesh, one would probably forget whether it is British or Chinese. I will not deny it has and will have its share of issues with engineering finesse but I guess it will work for the average Indian buyer and along with the 5 year warranty, MG/SAIC definitely hit the sweet spot.

If MG continues to give decent, VFM products which are quite reliable, I don't think I can find a valid reason for not finding MG being a major player in the Indian Car Scene in a couple of years!

@GTO sir as always rightly said

Originally Posted by GTO

What matters is the product. I found the Hector to be decent. It is no segment-benchmark or rivaling the established brands in engineering finesse, but it will leave owners reasonably satisfied, especially at that price (long-term reliability is a big unknown though).

Cheers!

[Logan2007]

Voted yes.

As mentioned by other members, SAIC bought a dead brand and are just putting the logo on a product completely unrelated to MG.

I'm not debating whether that is driving the sales, but it confuses the buyers for sure. A friend was very impressed after a test drive and booked it. Later on he told he's buying a British car!

[motorworks]

Originally Posted by superbad

- To counter your Apple/Volvo point, fyi, Apple is actually sticking it's name on a Chinese phone manufactured by Foxconn under contract. Now should we raise hell that Apple is rebranding & selling us a Chinese phone?

Why would anyone confuse Outsourcing in this context? Apple design its phones, its software, it even designs the way hardware should be optimised or engineered and then the finalised product is produced by Foxconn. Its pure outsourcing. All brands have outsourced components and production all over the world. Including Coca Cola, GAP, Uniqlo, Zara, Unilever and almost any global biggie would be doing what apple does.

What SAIC has done is different. They have bought a brand, mind you, only the brand and then are marketing a product under that brand claiming British legacy for the product. So, again, this is not a crime or something that is illegal. And agree that this is a clever marketing ploy. But is is completely and morally right? Probably no! Like I said before, didnt most of us get upset over Captur / Kaptur incident from Renault?
I see this from SAIC a bit on the same lines, but worse.
So point being, they can go ahead and keep marketing the same way, just that it does not sound right.

[OSH]

Originally Posted by superbad

How is it cheating if people have all the resources to check about the ownership of the brand?

So going by that logic, all companies are allowed to cheat/mislead just because the public has now got resources to find out how they are cheating us ?

How is it cheating for a company to use a brand it legally owns?

Please don't add your own stuff. Where have I written that SAIC should not use the brand MG ? I am only against them using the brand and then misleading the public to believe that it is the old british brand which it is clearly not.

Your entire premise of MG faking a product is flawed, it's called badge engineering & is prevalent the world over.

Again repeating myself, I'm not against badge engineering. I'm only against the misleading marketing of a chinese car as a british car. Had MG India not spoken about the british legacy bullshit, I would not have given a damn about them. Does badge engineering include exercises to make one believe in a wrong ?

Even if MG was selling me a Bajoun/Wuling, what's wrong with that?

They are telling you that the Hector is british. You are OK with that ? Is it right or wrong in your books ?

What is the "real MG"? The brand itself has gone through a dozen ownerships in its long history. Pray tell me, which one of these was "real"?

The real MG is that MG whose legacy has been written about on MG India's website.

To counter your Apple/Volvo point, fyi, Apple is actually sticking it's name on a Chinese phone manufactured by Foxconn under contract. Now should we raise hell that Apple is rebranding & selling us a Chinese phone?

Apple Inc. still devolopes and designs the phone, it is only assembled by Foxconn after getting parts from many countries. Apple is not doing anything like what MG India is doing.

Anyways this topic is really not worth spending so much time on and hence would conclude by saying that, those who fall for the british legacy marketing and buy the car, are cheated. But the people who know about SAIC-MG and buy the car based on the merits of the product are not cheated.

[srishiva]

What can and can't be done when a brand is bought ? What traits endure in a brand even if it stays at the place where it was built? I think after buying the brand they can use it as they deem. They are not saying it's designed and built in Britain.
Now would MG have built something like this ? Nobody knows. But they own it and informed consumers can do what they want.

[sgiitk]

This is tricky.

Yes, MG was British (Morris Garage)

It has been bought over 100% by the Chinese.

So what do we call it, originally British (DNA) but now Chinese.

I voted Not Sure!

[Slick]

Voted Yes,

They are entitled to fooling people because they own the brand. Is it ethical? I don't think so, especially the way they speak of the MG legacy. I think Benelli also falls in the category .

Is it legal ? by all means.

Some one mentioned HMD & Nokia, AFAIK HMD is made up of ex Nokia folks who loved the brand and wanted to revive it. They have tried to live up to the key USP of Nokia, Quality (and some versions of old popular models).

Though apart from this qualitative detail (Which cannot be measured and is only of emotional value), its fairly similar.

Would I buy the MG Hector? Depends on the product and long term reviews.

Would I buy the MG Hector if branded as Chinese ? No.

- Slick


Edit - If I recall correctly TATA sold Indica in Britain as City Rover, was that under the Land Rover brand? If so wouldn't it be the same (except I am sure TATA wouldn't talk about British heritage while doing that )