marketing

[Pottree@domain.elided]

In a message dated 6/17/2002 12:28:44 PM Pacific Daylight Time, 
owner-alfa-digest@domain.elided writes:


> And what's the point of having a Secret Society if
> ANYONE can join it?
> 
Of course, Scott's pretty much right.  But marketing a product (even an Alfa) 
is not the same thing as making it, or experiencing (buying, using) it.

There are at least two different market where Alfa will need to go from 0 to 
60 (even 0 to 1 would be an improvement, of course):  those who might 
actually be enticed to buy (or try) an Alfa... and those who would want to, 
or wish to, to make it an aspirational concept, to add that to the brand...

IOW, make it something like the Ultimate Driving Machine, the thing that some 
people buy (lease) but that many other know about, admire, aspire to -- and 
run right out to buy when they are able to at long last.


Right now, poor Alfa in the USA is more like (please forgive me, Joe Elliot) 
some forlorn piece of junk that is rusting away on a used car lot of junk 
yard, that you can buy very cheap if you are willing to put up with holding 
it together in the face of its being orphaned, like a CRX for the young and 
poor student maschochist set.  I mean, how many people (a number greater than 
one?) go through years of dental school and open a practice with the dream of 
going out and buying a new Alfa?  V BMW?  V Lexus?  V, even, Mercedes?  

You have to make it something worth WANTING as well as something worth 
buying.

In the past, they did a bang-up job of neither.  Why is an open question, but 
past history in any event.

Perhaps someone should do a study (o dig out the ones already done) that 
compare the buying habits in NA to those in, for example, Europe.  What 
combination of factors makes someone consider, look, and then spring for it?  
Are Euro buyers more knowledgeable than US buyers?  Are US consumers more 
conscious of image than performance?

Does exclusivity have to do, well, exclusively, with cost in the USA?

Who sets the wheels in motion: the older people who can afford something like 
an Alfa, or the younger people who can't but who set the style?  

Why would a rap star buy a purple Diablo or a black Range Rover?  Would the 
same kind of character buy an Alfa?  A Ferrari?

What does the car say about the consumer and what does the consumer say about 
the car?

Charlie
LA, CA, USA
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