How'd you market your car brand?

[Kooper]

Thought this might be interesting:

Before I start, I submit that I do not work for any major, minor (or anything in-between) automotive manufacturing company. I'm not even in the automotive-industry or in any way associated with any automotive manufacturing company, or any remotely automotive-related company or associated industry for that matter. My name is Kooper and I approve of this here message.

You're an infinitely-over multi billion-zillionaire, bored to death, and as a hobby you thought it could be fun to launch a new supercar-brand.

You decide on a name you think carries enough oohmpaloohmpa to make it in the big, nasty, specialist-supercar-infested world.


You hire the best knowledge available engineering wise, develop your love interest to near perfection and you're just about ready to drop a bomb at some major international motoring show.

...You just have one major problem: Your new-found-all-access-pass to motoring nirvana has no credibility where it matters most, and that, as every car-nut worth his salt knows, is amongst the good folk who may not necessarily have enough funds to own a dream machine but can throw details down to the last millimeter of any car worth jacking off about (read UCP forum members)...

You ponder the problem for days and days, finally coming up with: (this is the part you contribute)




Me? I'd develop the car(s) to production readiness. I'd then create a track-focused racing car using only production parts from the yet-to-be-released supercar and in no way tweaked or tuned. The chassis itself (and maybe some other handling bits) of course would be of the racing variety, but other than that, pure production parts.

I'd then let this special car loose on every major racing track in the world. The aim being to break whichever track record exists at the particular venue in question or at the very least get very close to it. It goes without saying I'd make as big a spectacle of every event as I possibly can.

When the time's ripe, I'd then launch the production product at some major motoring show -preferably Geneva- right next to the hopefully multiple record-breaking purpose-built racer.


You?

[blingbling]

make one that makes girls like cars

[fisetdavid26]

make one that makes girls like cars

Short reply yet very effective.

What this man said.

[Kooper]

make one that makes girls like cars

Mmmm... Good answer.

Thing is though, when it comes to the car-side of the world, we get models and actresses of the female variety (maybe males as well, not sure though) sporting transport equipment as imaginative as Hummer H1s and Priuses. Hardly the stuff of dreams, at least to this car nut.

I say make something that makes men willing to trade in their women for the car, and women willing to give birth to the yet-to-be-born children of whomever is driving the car.

[LeonOfTheDead]

When the time's ripe, I'd then launch the production product at some major motoring show -preferably Geneva- right next to the hopefully multiple record-breaking purpose-built racer.

i think you have a problem:
to homologate a race car you need a road-going version...btw, it's a good strategy, but this would give you a fame of a factory with a truly fast car, but nothing more, imo.
thinking about supercars of this days: the maserati mc12, it destroied every record in the races it entered, but it isn't the most performing supercar or the best looking or the most desirable. while a zonda is fast, really fast, but it is also a work of art in the satisfaction of the customer with an almost perfect ballance between performances, style and attention for details.
imo, a good strategy is to debut whit a product wich isn't the best in the market, but with its own personallity and without any flaws. then i would keep developing my product. as pagani did...

[kingofthering]

Build a supercar that comes in 2 trim levels- Pure luxury (think Bugatti Veyron) and Track (think FXX w/ some comfort; possible homologation special/F1 tester?), with considerable testing at the Nuerburgring and the usual set of tests.

Launch at Geneva, throw a launch party in LA, Paris, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and the other major markets and invide some celebs.

Hold a few track days w/ journalists to show off handling/balance (Nuerburgring), speed (LeMans).

Then sell.

[Kooper]

i think you have a problem:
to homologate a race car you need a road-going version...btw, it's a good strategy, but this would give you a fame of a factory with a truly fast car, but nothing more, imo.
thinking about supercars of this days: the maserati mc12, it destroied every record in the races it entered, but it isn't the most performing supercar or the best looking or the most desirable. while a zonda is fast, really fast, but it is also a work of art in the satisfaction of the customer with an almost perfect ballance between performances, style and attention for details.
imo, a good strategy is to debut whit a product wich isn't the best in the market, but with its own personallity and without any flaws. then i would keep developing my product. as pagani did...

That's the beauty of it though, it wouldn't be a race-car so much as it being in a race that has to comply to some rules set forth by a group of bureaucrats.
It'd be a pure purpose-built track-record breaker, not having to comply to any rules of any race governing body, but only existing with the sole purpose of generating net-time on sites like this one, and to do that, especially on a site like this, it would have to deliver the goods. It'd be the counter-point to arguments like car X went around track Y in Z time, to which someone would answer something like "Oh yeah? Well, car (insert your brand-name here) went around track Y in Z-20s! Uh-huh biatch!"

The fact that it used parts from a production model would be the sweetener of the deal.

Think along the lines of what Radical has done with its Ring record breaker, then milking the fact 100 times more intensely.

[Ferrer]

I'd try an offer something that other car makers don't offer. Since everyone is relying on speed and performance I'd take the Pagani approach.

Attention to detail, drama, excitement and style. The car should give pleasure either doing 20 or 200mph. Driving should be an experience and not a mere traject from point A to point B. The car should connect emotionally with the driver. That's why we like cars after all, don't we?

Performance and lap records are all very well, but in the rear world are pretty much meaningless. The experience, the feel is everything.

Racing heritage could be a bonus to be added later in the life of the car, perhaps.

[Kooper]

I'd try an offer something that other car makers don't offer. Since everyone is relying on speed and performance I'd take the Pagani approach.

Attention to detail, drama, excitement and style. The car should give pleasure either doing 20 or 200mph. Driving should be an experience and not a mere traject from point A to point B. The car should connect emotionally with the driver. That's why we like cars after all, don't we?

Performance and lap records are all very well, but in the rear world are pretty much meaningless. The experience, the feel is everything.

Racing heritage could be a bonus to be added later in the life of the car, perhaps.

That's perhaps what supercars are really about, isn't it? It should be super in every sense of the word, from styling to power to a sense of occasion every time you get in it or even just look at it.

I just somehow think that to capture the world's imagination, you have to create something 10-year-old kids would stick a poster of on their walls. I remember as a kid, I was fascinated by the Countach's 348kW, its other worldly looks and (believe it or not) 345/35 rear tires.
I knew the F40 was perhaps more purposeful, but the Countach... Now there was a car worth drooling over!

Figures matter a whole bunch, and I think the car currently leading the poster on the wall race is probably the Bug. Maybe because of nothing else than its 1000+ kW, I dunno (sorry, not a big Veyron-fan myself).

How do you beat that by not being Ferrari or resorting to Pagani levels of styling?


EDIT: Maybe I should think about this from the mindset of a kid. I think I'm focusing too much on the stats of it.

[LeonOfTheDead]

think about the SSC Aero, is faster and more powerfull than a veyron, but it is pretty unknow outside of enthusiast's forums. the bugatti isn't as weel so well know as a ferrari or a lamborghini, and it is the same for a mclaren or a pagani. ordinary people know only ferrari, lamborghini and porsche, without knowing the differences between them, of course. so it's a good idea to offer something really new, with a totally different approach.
first of all, i would produce cars in very small numbers, to bring them a high level of individualism, as they owner ar supposed to be people very different from other people so they could, would appear in a very distinctive way from others.
btw, i think it would be very important to focus on the product, and not on the money it will bring me.

[SlickHolden]

As long as you got someone famous and half naked you can sell anything.

[digitalcraft]

Pay hot chicks to get the brand logo tattooed on their ass.

[LeonOfTheDead]

Pay hot chicks to get the brand logo tattooed on their ass.

it seems it is impossible to carrie on a thread without underlining why there are no girls on our forum...

the more famous people and chicks are invited to the launch of the car the less it will be valueted from real car's enthusiast, press, buyers.
whatever i am going to buy, it is irrelevant if some vip already own it or if it attracts a stupid hot chick with a brand tattooed on her ass.
if you are going to sell hummers maybe it could work, in fact i am not interested in hummers, while in order to sell supercars with tag price with 5-6 zeros, you must prove it is worth the money on its own, no matter who already owns it or how much chicks are around the car. probably such a customer is more important than a lot of vip you can think about, and could have a lot of chicks if he would like to.

[ruim20]

I think i would go for the lot, start creating a 3 segment brand like (3-5-7 or C - E - S or A4 - A6 - A8) a sports car, a city car and on my free time a supercar.
On the other hand i'd probably just set up a wharehouse in a quite part of town and start building a sports car, very mechanic and simple and start developing new cars from there. A small workforce, nothing to big.

[digitalcraft]

You start out with something that sells well, i.e. to the general populace. That kind of car is sold by celebrities and ass-tattoos. After you have a good cash flow you can start with enthusiast cars, which usually have a small margin and often a bit of a loss, that the company considers made up by name recognition and association with a badinski car.