[alfa] Re: alfa-digest V9 #1157

["Rich Wagner" <drsavage@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>It seems to me the Scandinavians have been fairly good at this, or at
least 
>good enough to get bought by US marketers Ford and GM.  The found a
special 
>market niche and mined it.  The Germans have been excellent at it, also
finding 
>and exploiting a niche (NB: it doesn't have to be true that a Swedish car
is 
>safer or a German car offers unparalleled engineering excellence and the
build 
>quality of a fine watch, only that customers believe it to be true). 
OTOH, the 
>English, the Italians, and the French have been lousy at it, coming up
with 
>no unique selling proposition that can move products in a competitive mass

>market.  Until recently, the Japanese wrote the book and the American
copied the 
>plays.

The Americans have never, ever come close to what the Japanese have done.

I never cease to be amazed at the American business mindset.  Here, the
attitude is almost always, "Yeah, we've got a product that's a piece of
crap, but we can use advertising to scam people into buying it."  The
thought of actually talking with customers to find out what they want, and
then (of all things) producing it, never enters the realm of possibilities.
 Well, when your competition IS thinking that way, your existence will be
tenuous and filled with anxiety.  I know from whence I speak.

Alfa didn't fail in the U.S. because its marketing and advertising weren't
right.  It failed because it sold a product that was, to its customers,
flawed.  Our little community has reaped the benefits of this as cars were
abandoned by their original, dissatisfied owners and bought up at cheap
prices by those of us who can handle the upkeep or modifications required
to set the machines straight.

Alfa is already producing cars that meet U.S. requirements, and are DESIRED
by customers here--provided that the designs and manufacturing are solid
(which seems to be the case, but is yet to be proven here), and that a
reliable support network exists.  The overhead required for DOT approval
would be covered quickly even by this small, existing market.  NO
advertising is necessary to sell them and, should they be seen to be
reliable, stylish and fun, their mere presence will advertise them, just as
Honda found in the '70's and '80's.

Japan pulled the entire world up with it from the '50s through the '90s by
adopting a very simple philosophy that is still thoroughly misunderstood by
American businesses and the American Government.  None of that philosophy
is based on the American concept of marketing or on advertising.


Rich Wagner
Montrose, CO
'82 GTV6 Balocco
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