Acura: All We Need Is Advertising
Despite spending $264.1 million on measured media in the first 11 months of 2009, up 16.5 percent from the year-ago period [per AdAge monitoring] while sales fell nearly 27 percent, Automotive News [sub] reports that Acura is upping its 2010 ad spend by 50 percent. According to Acura’s advertising boss Steven Center, Acura’s awareness levels have been consistently high, but consumers didn’t perceive it being as prestigious as other luxury brands. By boosting advertising of new products like the ZDX and TSX Sportwagon, Center hopes to close the gap with the premium perceptions of its German competitors. Center explains:
Our messaging for years has been too ill-focused and not about the product. The ads weren’t making the point and the point is: What is it about Acura that makes it better? We want to have the emotion of BMW without the hardware,
You know, instead of being seen as higher-content, uglified Hondas. Yeah, more advertising should help with that.
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ad: "the four door coupe concept from Acura" I got cut off by a mental representation in traffic today. Who writes this stuff? Or maybe they have no idea what to call this thing.
the NSX is like the Audi R8 it's a dream machine that is so divorced from the rest of the range it sells itself eg. the Nissan Skyline GT-R... it's NOT representative of any Nissan i don't like Honda, i don't even like 3.0 v6s in any form but the NSX - I love it!
What in the hell is that thing? Couldn't Honda leave the Crosstour alone? I don't think anyone (except the voices in their heads) asked them to take a Crosstour and make it uglier and more expensive. IMO, Acura sells so few cars because their cars selection sucks for what you pay. There's no way I'd ever buy a chromed up expensive Honda with an automagic. That's what a regular Honda is for. The Integra and Legend were cool cars at the time. Then HAcura abandoned them and gave them all stupid names. I know that Honda knows about keeping established names, so why did they drop their popular model names and go to letters? The TSX wagon might be okay if they actually just sold it as an Accord wagon. I can't see that car doing well in the U.S. I think they need to give up on it and just concentrate their resources on making a full range of great Hondas.
Acura lost its focus years ago & has been going downhill ever since. Flagship identity was lost with the Legend's passing and styling of the current lineup is bizzare. Some heads should roll at Acura before the whole division goes down the drain.