Saab is working hard to grab the green performance high ground Down Under. And according to local boss, Parveen Batish, the GM Premium Brands brand is already starting to see a return for its efforts.
According to Batish, the brand's new positioning and USP is responsible performance. He argues that though Australian luxury car consumers are still performance-focused, there is a growing group of consumers that are looking to offset that desire with some level of economical and environmental rationalism.
"Saab is about performance with responsibility. There's no doubt in this [local] marketplace that people want performance -- whether it's [delivered with] a four-cylinder, six-cylinder or eight-cylinder engine, they want performance... What we're offering is performance but with fuel economy -- which is what they want, especially with increasing petrol pricing, etc, and if they're interested in the environment also," Batish told the Carsales Network.
Speaking at the local launch of the +all-wheel-drive TurboX limited edition flagship and TTiD Aero range this week, Batish said no-guilt get up and go would increasingly become Saab's point of difference.
"As a brand what we're going to focus on is responsible performance. The fact that we have excellent diesel engines -- with an Aero diesel now; the fact that [we have] enviro-power flexible [fuel] vehicles with E85; the fact that we have four-cylinder engines with great performance and fuel economy -- all of this leads to responsible performance.
"Everyone wants performance. When people buy a premium car that's what they want," Batish says. But he cautions, success in the rapidly changing market means: "being able to give them all the other alternatives that they require too."
"We think we've got great cars with great packages [consistent with this ethos] -- especially the TTiD. We think we always have cars we can talk about [but] we don't want to underestimate how important these two [latest] cars are [TurboX and Aero TTiD]."
Saab has been in the wilderness for some time Down Under. More than 27 per cent down year-to-date (May 2008), the marque has registered less than 600 cars in the first five months of this year. This latest figure is almost 100 cars less than the same opening five months of 2006.
Batish contends the brand is on its way back, however.
"There no doubt we suffered [in the past] because we spent a lot of time telling people what the price of the car was rather than what the brand was about. That [focus] has a negative impact as far as your residual values are concerned and it takes a while to dig yourself out of that hole and we're not out of that hole yet completely.
"We're seeing the signs of it going in the right direction," he says.
"We have been talking about the brand a lot more over the last 18 months. We've got to tell people what Saab's about if we're going to be sustainable in the future. We can't just go on price and in fact I'm not sure there is any elasticity in pricing with premium cars. People are willing to pay as long as they know they are getting the performance and the value that they expect from the brand that they are buying,"
"That's why the TTiD is exciting. Because you do get that package -- you get all the equipment [you'd expect] on the car. You don't have to pay extra -- they're standard and you get the performance and better economy."
Saab facelifted the 9-3 for the 2008 MY (more here), however, we'd suggest even some car-savvy shoppers have 'missed' the update. Batish doesn't agree.
"Since we launched the My08 [our] sedan sales have gone up."
He says that the former stronghold of Saab, the affordable four-place convertible, is more of an issue. While the Swedish marque virtually had this market to itself a decade ago, it's now the playground of companies with more marketing and dealer muscle.
"It would be great to have product that is refreshed far more often but we have to be mindful of the situation that we're in. We don't sell a million cars around the world, we sell 130,000 -- with that comes its own economics.
"We still think we have a great product to sell and what we're adding underneath the bonnet just reinforces that.
"The conversion that we get when people test drive our cars -- which is still running at about 50 per cent -- just shows that when people drive our cars they really like what they drive," Batish opined.
So, is that light at the end of the tunnel for Saab Down Under or just the 12.02 coming the other way?
Batish: "There's certain areas we need to get better on. We need to improve our sales to fleet and I think the fact more and more fleets are now looking at green alternatives -- four-cylinders, diesel, etc -- means we have an opportunity to make some sort of impact.
"We haven't had the traction [in fleet sales] that I would have liked to have by this stage.
"And there are certain markets that we should do well in that we haven't been doing well in for various reasons. The Sydney market has not been particularly good for us. And when you're only selling, say, 150 cars per month, losing, say, 30 cars from one particular market per month has a big impact on [total] sales [performance]," Batish revealed.
"We're a little bit disappointed in terms of our sales but we understand the reasons why... We feel we're taking the brand in the right direction, adding better products to our brand and we'll continue in the direction we're going," he said.
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