{"id":548146,"date":"2010-04-30T14:39:10","date_gmt":"2010-04-30T18:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.caranddriver.com\/?p=20350"},"modified":"2010-04-30T14:39:10","modified_gmt":"2010-04-30T18:39:10","slug":"buick-trying-to-fix-the-perception-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/548146","title":{"rendered":"Buick: Trying to Fix the Perception Problem"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Buick\u2019s competitive new products\u2014starting with the Enclave and now the LaCrosse and brand-new Regal\u2014far exceed the brand\u2019s former perception of building roly-poly barges for the retiree crowd. Speaking of the age thing, this recent product push has helped; Buick\u2019s average customer in the U.S. is now 65 years old versus 72 just a short while ago. This may sound ancient compared to the usual marketing spiel about appealing to the young, hip, active-lifestyle crowd (never mind that these people don\u2019t tend to have the money to actually buy a new car). But as the director of Buick marketing, Craig Bierley, points out, the average age of any<\/em> U.S. new-car buyer is 54, due to an aging population of boomers; in fact, this number has steadily increased over the past five years.<\/p>\n

By the way, the situation couldn\u2019t be more different than in Buick\u2019s largest market, China, where the brand is perceived as fashionable and the average age of its customers is an enviable 32.<\/p>\n

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The Buick team wisely acknowledges that product is king\u2014of which substantially more will be coming in the near future<\/a>\u2014but is also continuing a significant and sustained advertising budget to help people see the light. The plan appears to be working, too, as focus groups are showing a much-improved view of the latest cars. A series of questions that marketers refer to as the \u201cpurchase funnel\u201d starts out by asking broad questions such as, \u201cHave you ever heard of Buick?\u201d, followed up with more and more detailed queries leading to \u201cWould you rate the LaCrosse as excellent?\u201d (that is, if they already have first-hand experience with the product). The previous LaCrosse received \u201cexcellent\u201d ratings just eight percent of the time versus well over 20 percent for the new car (for reference, the best brands receive \u201cexcellent\u201d ratings from about 40 percent of respondents). This tripling in the past year is an all-time record among GM brands.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, Bierley says that it was more than simply Buick\u2019s importance in China that kept it alive post-bankruptcy, whereas Pontiac was dropped. He explains that consumer data shows that Buick doesn\u2019t, in fact, have a negative brand perspective. It\u2019s simply that most people believe the brand\u2019s cars are appropriate for their parents or grandparents and not for them. This perception, he says, is far easier to fix than Pontiac\u2019s predicament. It turns out the excitement division often received such glamorous feedback from clinics as being thought of as cars for \u201cwhite trash.\u201d We\u2019re no marketing experts, but that does sound pretty dire.<\/p>\n

Related posts:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Buick Will Do Away With Trim Levels in 2012<\/a><\/li>\n
  2. Next Up From Buick: Smaller Sedan and Compact SUV<\/a><\/li>\n
  3. Buick to Launch Four New Models in 24 Months<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Buick\u2019s competitive new products\u2014starting with the Enclave and now the LaCrosse and brand-new Regal\u2014far exceed the brand\u2019s former perception of building roly-poly barges for the retiree crowd. Speaking of the age thing, this recent product push has helped; Buick\u2019s average customer in the U.S. is now 65 years old versus 72 just a short while […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6419,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-548146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mobile","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6419"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548146\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}