image mongering

[Pottree@domain.elided]

In a message dated 01/04/2002 8:12:44 AM Pacific Standard Time, 
owner-alfa-digest@domain.elided writes:


> So, it's clear actually Fiat has not a good image,
> even if produce good products. To loose the image is
> easy, to rebuilt an image needs products, very good
> products, and years. Do you agree?

To rebuild an image takes a lot more than good products (which may not, 
strictly, even be necessary).  It takes a commitment to the future, not 
always operating with one foot out the door and the CLOSED signs at the ready 
at the plant, or a with a sale contract on the table just waiting signatures 
if and when the time is ripe.  It takes a lot of money that does not go into 
"durable" things such as raw materials, factories, robotic equipment, even 
labor, but rather into "softer" investments like media buying, product 
placements, and psychographic testing.

The question, as I see it, isn't whether or not Alfa can be sold successfully 
as a prestige brand, but whether or not management wants to make the 
commitment to doing so.  I think they may finally be beyond the "We offer the 
Alfas so the barbarians in the USA will find out what a car should be and 
they will come and get it spontaneously."  But there is still a huge chasm 
between those who make the things and those who try to sell them.  One camp 
is still fixated on the product as engineering, metal, plastic, rubber-like 
stuff, and glass: its parts, its manufacture, its operation. The other side 
is leaning out where the buying decisions are made: image, acceptability, 
organic design, customer-centric thinking, edge.  The funny thing is, there 
are very few places on Earth where they do this stuff better than in Milano, 
which is the world capital of so many industries that are based mostly on 
selling image, or how the customer feels about the product and how the 
product makes the customer feel about himself.

I suspect that in relation to Alfa's return to NA market, there is still some 
kind of cultural divide between the local realities of the marketplace and 
the thinking in Italy.  As long as they don't get too much input from Detroit 
(Rule #1: make sure it won't offend anyone's Midwestern grandmother or make 
you look foolish!) I am optimistic.  But they still need to address what they 
have to work with: Alfa is pretty much unknown in the USA, ergo a risky 
investment; when there is some recognition, it is negative (breaks down, 
rusts out, expensive and complicated to maintain, no dealers).  [And, there 
is a small, sub-economic handful of passionate Alfisti who together could not 
support a business in new cars if they each bought a new unit every 6 
months.]

They really need to get over that reluctance to SELL the thing.  I know this 
is not a popular POV, especially among engineers (there are more than a few 
on this list) who tend to poo-poo marketing as a waste of resources and a 
somewhat dishonest way to hoodwink people, but the old Alfa song "it is 
better on the road, ergo they will find it and buy it happily" has passed its 
coda.

Charlie
LA, CA, USA

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