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I just watched the Aero School Video Saab has on its USA website. It spurred the thought of that article in the Detroit press and the theme of core values and heritage etc.
If we were to discuss what those values were, wouldn't we all come down to engineering and practical driving experience? To clarify, Saab had always been a driver’s car. My recent 2300-mile trip in a 1974 Saab 99 showed me, that even at 29 years old, the driving character comes through loud and clear. As I made my way from Colorado to Maine, my thoughts also crossed the engineering thread time after time. I took solace in knowing that even in a 29-year-old car, I was likely better protected than in many modern autos, that the fresh air vent in the center panel is a godsend. I pulled several 12-16 hours driving stints and was no more uncomfortable after those sessions than I was after the same driving time in the 97 Aero I drive now, or the Viggen I used to drive.
My point is that if I were the Saab marketing chief, I would center my advertising on these core themes. All the advertising of the past 6-8 years seems to want create some other reasons to buy the make, but they have all been to soft and fluffy, too wispy and intellectual. Yet, all of these themes could have been fine if they had let the core values come through.
I'll point again to an ad I never saw, the Viggen on the flight deck on the carrier. In my mind it screams performance and engineering, and it conveys this message with a very large stick.
Whatever the reason Saab seems to not want to challenge them selves to be true to the heritage they have earned since building cars in the 50's.
Earned. Saab has earned much, but unless they educate the largely ignorant public, then they will continue to be quirky. Saab embodies many of the characteristics of several other models out there; perhaps this is why it is so hard for the marketing people to address the issue. If one uses the term "a drivers car", we all immediate think of one marques’ ads, and if we think of safety we might easily point to another mark. It is almost as if Saab is afraid to promote what is rightfully theirs because they feel it will be seen as stealing another marks identity.
Pontiac sells aluminum siding mobiles with blind women screaming through the desert pulling doughnuts. Pontiac makes an ok American car, but when it comes to driving isn't Saab a better machine for it than a Pontiac?
Toyota sells its new ?corolla" with an ad of some yahoo running the empty city streets, pulling slides and 360's like he was in a tricked out super car.
Volvo seems to have the most effective ads of late. I **know** they build safe cars and they show me this in almost every ad they do. The avg Volvo isn’t any safer than the avg Saab, so why is their sales effort more effective or at least consistent?
Saab is a drivers car.... even Volkswagen gets the idea that people love to drive... and they sell many cars with this theme.... but Saab has been more than a drivers car.. it is a car for real people with real lives. I don't mean that anyone driving something else doesn't have a real life... more that the engineers that designed Saabs looked into the ways of the car and how we live with them. I but Saab because I appreciate the thought that went into the design and function... once upon a time Saab had the Form Follows Function thread... of course they let Caddy have that line a few years ago... not that any caddy owner knew saab used it first... or did Saab steal the idea from another too?
Saab is treading a very thin section of ice with me personally. I agree with the Detroit news guy in that the new 9-3 looks like a Grand-am with slightly modified cladding. I maintain what I said last year when i first saw the 9-3 in person... the rear end looks like an argument no one won.
Last year at the SOC Saab held a session where they went of the technical goodies in the new 9-3.... and I was impressed. I was really impressed with the g's they could pull and the slalom times they could get. Seems this was smoke, as the auto press hasn't gotten anywhere near the performance out of the 9-3 that was being hyped and the HP reaction has been mediocre. The 9-3 seems to be a good car, or at least it has great potential, yet it does seem to fall short of its' promise. Why?
When Saab introduced the Viggen, it created huge excitement, but that soon turned to a bad taste in the mouth as the auto press started tearing it apart for many reasons, some valid, and some not so valid. I think everyone who has driven a Viggen would agree that the extra $50 in front end parts and better tires would have waylaid much of the criticism.
Here we are, one year into the 9-3 launch. The trade press likes the car well enough but seems to be far from saying this car is super!... one consistent complaint is a lack of felt HP... one magazine was really disappointed in the poor 0-60 times and the poor skid pad g's. I was a bit shocked to see the G's in the skid pad being as low as they were considering the hype applied by Saab…... and not having enough grunt in the power train just shouldn't happen. It seems counter productive to make noise about creating a car that aims to compete with MB,BMW,Volvo etc and then mis-represent its' ability and send it out to the auto press underpowered. If I was marketing chief, the very first 9-3 to hit the market would have boasted at least 270 hp, and would have put the competition in the barn and prevented the negative issue of "lack of performance" from ever being brought up.
Isn't it great to sit back and second-guess high paid executives... What would you do?
posted by 12.27.1...
, Thu, 21 Aug 2003 10:46:58
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