#Branding

TTAC’s writers don’t always agree with each other, but we can’t help but rub off on each other a little bit. After all, as our Jack Baruth puts it, “great artists steal.” Lately we’ve been treated to a tour of Jack’s love-hate relationship with the Porsche brand in his take on Paul Niedermeyer’s “Deadly Sins” series. And if the latest news on Porsche’s product plans [via Auto Motor und Sport] are anything to go on, we can probably expect more Baruthian takedowns of Zuffenhausen’s flights of fancy going forward.

Anybody who made it through the last 12 months or so with their passion for the Saab brand intact deserves some kind of free psychological screening and endangered species protection award. Hell, anyone who made it through the last 20 years… you know what, this isn’t the moment for cynicism. Through the wrenching chaos of GM’s often-abortive attempts to sell Saab, the website SaabsUnited has stood by its brand, aggregating the most complete Saab sale coverage on the web, and generally consoling the faithful. Oh yes, and suffering through a relentless stream of cynicism from yours truly (sorry guys, it’s all we know). Anyway, for being the keepers of hope when all hope seemed lost, Saab has named and annual award after SaabsUnited which

will be made annually as the company’s way of expressing its gratitude to people like [SU founder Steven Wade] and others who continue to show us such great support.

Sometimes I miss Bob Lutz so much it hurts. First we’re teased with rumors of a Cadillac flagship and now this: a Zeta-based Buick flagship that’s the spiritual successor to the 1996 Buick Roadmaster. The news is exciting, even if it lacks the panache of a Lutzian rear-wheel-drive screed. But you have to read a little deeper for the real punch line.

New vehicle buyers who are influenced by motorsports typically love cars and trucks and they are opinion leaders for other car buyers – they give an average of 25 or more vehicle recommendations per year to others. More importantly people follow their advice – and we have measured it. So, there is a downstream impact from the races in the form of on-going word of mouth recommendations. That’s why we say that the roar from a race car continues away from the track.

Steve Bruyn, President of Foresight Research breaks down an intriguing finding from his firm’s “2010: Automotive Marketing Return On Investment” study [via PRNewswire]. What makes Foresight’s finding so strange is that from Formula One to NASCAR, OEMs have been grumbling about the irrelevance of major race series to their automotive products. Meanwhile, there’s no shortage of anecdotal evidence to suggest that automotive enthusiasm is on the decline in general, a reality which implies that racing is less important to automotive buying decisions than ever. So just how effective is the oldest form of automotive marketing?

Recently, Opel’s boss Nick Reilly was asked by the Süddeutschen Zeitung how long it could be before GM’s top management decides that it doesn’t want to rescue its European division Opel after all. His answer [via Autobild]:

It’s not a question of two years, but rather six or nine months, before we need to have proven that we’ve made positive progress

Even then, Reilly admits that

We need four to five years before we’re able to get back to where we were

That doesn’t sound so good, does it?

The Fiat brand returns to the US later this year, spearheaded by the Mexican-built 500 minicar and followed next year by Abarth and convertible versions of the A-segment hatchback. With some 200 Chrysler dealers in major urban centers preparing to add the Fiat brand to their portfolios, Automotive News [sub] reports that the brand hopes to reach at least 50k units and as many as 100k units by next year. For comparison, the MINI brand sold 45,293 units in the last 12 months (ending in June) and 48,562 in the previous 12 months.

Smart’s current plan for reviving its fading sales is a Tesla-powered EV version of its Smart ForTwo, which the Daimler-owned firm hopes will keep its city cars moving until a new platform is jointly developed with Renault. Further down the road though, it seems that Smart is moving to expand out of cars, as Autocar reports that the brand is developing a plug-in electric scooter. A senior Mercedes-Benz source tells the British magazine that

Smart was originally established to tackle the need for improved mobility, especially in congested city environments. Up to now we have concentrated our efforts on four-wheel solutions. The next stage is to looking at how to expand beyond this with other environmentally friendly vehicles

With Kia’s first US plant pumping out hot-selling new Sorentos, the Korean brand has been desperate to stake its claim to the transplant patriotism that has helped the Japanese automakers rise to dominance in the US market. In this latest ad for the new Sorento, Kia leaves the viewer with no room to doubt where the Sorento is made… and it’s already the second ad to feature Kia’s new West Point, GA factory. So, how does this all play back home in Korea? Hit the jump for the answer…

24/7 Wall Street seems to believe that Hyundai’s junior brand could go away in the next year and a half, as it named Kia to its “Ten Brands That Will Disappear in 2011” list. This despite the fact that Kia’s first-half sales were up 15 percent over the first half of 2009, and Kia’s rolling 12-month sales are over 22 percent higher than its performance in the previous 12 months. So, why does 24/7 Wall Street see Kia disappearing?

Kia Motors Corporation is one of the two car brands of Hyundai of South Korea. It has always been a marginal brand. Its stable mate, Hyundai USA, has a reputation for high quality cars like the Sonata and Genesis. Kia sells “low rent” cars and SUV nameplates like the Sorento and Rio. As GM and Ford have already discovered, it is expensive to maintain multiple brands and storied car names, including Pontiac, Saturn, and Mercury, are disappearing. Most Kia cars sell for $14,000 to $25,000. Hyundai has several cars in the same price range. Hyundai’s Sonata has quickly become one of the best-selling cars in America, and its Genesis flagship model competes with mid-sized BMWs and Mercedes. The parent company will take a page from several other global car companies and dump its weakest brand.

After a year of bitter battles with its dealers in the wake of a bankruptcy-era dealer cull, Chrysler is about to do the unthinkable: start a whole new dealer network to sell Fiats built in Italy by its new owner. The Detroit News reports that

existing Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Ram dealers will get a chance to apply to sell the Italian Fiats, but they must be able to operate separate facilities with different sales and service teams in order to win a franchise.

Fiat will return to the US by the end of this year, starting with the Mexican-built Fiat 500.

Now that we can basically predict the styling of future Buicks by putting waterfall grilles on current Opels, and the brand’s biggest market is China, it’s safe to say that Buick is no longer a particularly American brand anymore. It should come as no real surprise then, that it took a German to build the Ultimate Buick. That “B” on the grille stands for Bitter, an old-school German tuning house that has been to Opel what Alpina is to BMW. But because Erich Bitter has spent his life improving mass-market cars rather than Bavarian bahnsturmers, he brings a unique approach to the Opel Insignia, also known as the Buick Regal. In fact, you could almost call it more Buick than Buick.