automotive

Buick Targets Mid-Sized And Small-Car Buyers

Buick

Buick has been putting its vehicles in front of consumers in a range of invitation-only culinary and lifestyle events around the country -- to great effect, judging from the General Motors division's sales numbers (Buick is the fasting-growing auto brand in the country).

More recently, the brand has been finding other venues for its vehicles to reach new audiences. One of them is the Wired pop-up store in Manhattan, open only until the day after Christmas. Featured on the main floor is Buick's 2011 Regal, right near such technological oddities and marvels as a one-wheeled sport-motorcycle, a collection of ultra-flat-screen, high-def TVs, a meditation egg and massage chair and the latest in computer gadgetry.

In the realm of more traditional product integration, the Regal and other Buick vehicles will be central to what is being billed as the biggest outdoor hockey match ever, the "Big Chill at the Big House." The game pits the Michigan Wolverines against traditional rivals Michigan State Spartans at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Buick is the official automotive sponsor of the event, which organizers say will bring in 111,000 fans.

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As such, the new Regal will be featured on a rink-side display and event attendees have a chance to win the car via a competitive shoot-off from center ice. Participants have to fire a puck past a blocker to the goal during the break between the game's second and third periods. In addition, says Buick, the first 5,000 fans to sign up for a chance to take the winning shot will receive a Buick-co-branded "Big Chill at the Big House" seat cushion.

The automaker will also have the LaCrosse and Enclave vehicles at the stadium with a focus on the vehicles' AWD winter-weather capability.

Craig Bierley, head of advertising and promotions for Buick and GMC, who was at the Wired store in New York for a Buick event on Wednesday night, said the company has been putting focus on experiential efforts as well as digital and social-media programs to promote Regal. The car at the Wired space uses an iPod Touch as a virtual driving experience so when a visitor sits in the driver's seat, a visual and auditory "drive" launches. "We have brought in a couple of thousand people a day through this, so it's done very well."

Bierley says Buick beat its sales objectives last month and that Regal sales are constrained by the vehicle's availability, as the car is based on the European Opel Insignia. The company has just begun building the car at its Canadian Oshawa Car Assembly Plant. "We're short on vehicles coming out of Europe; when we localize production in the U.S., we will ramp up volume," he says, explaining that there is a lot of pent-up demand for the vehicle because Buick hasn't had a new mid-sized car in its lineup since 2004 when the final last-generation Regal rolled out of the assembly plant.

But Bierley says he isn't focusing the Regal pitch to loyalists. "Where I direct all of my marketing efforts is conquest," he says. "We will, of course, do CRM stuff, but most of what we do is about finding new customers." Buick has had one of the oldest median buyer ages in the industry for years, but Bierley says that's changing -- that the current median age is about 60 (it used to be in the high 60's). Yet, he insists that acquiring new customers is more important than targeting a younger demographic.

"If you focus on younger consumers, you get into really tactical efforts that wind up driving your communications, possibly to places you don't want to go," says Bierley. "Listen, if a 70-year-old guy wants to buy a Buick and he's new to the brand, heck yeah! We're about growing the brand." That said, he points out that while Buick's median-age target is younger than the average age of its current buyer, the gap is narrowing.

He says the median age of the Enclave SUV buyer, for instance, is now mid-50's and that, so far, about a third of people buying the Regal are 40 or younger. "By virtue of attracting new people to the brand, we lower our median age," he says, adding that Buick also must bring in new customers because the brand has no so-called "installed owner base" for small and mid-sized cars since it hasn't had a small car for years and Regal is just out of the blocks.

The company is launching a turbocharged version of the Regal in the first quarter, with advertising to hit in February, per Bierley. Next year the brand will also introduce the 2012 Buick Verano, Buick's first small car since the Skylark was discontinued in 1997.

With regard to the campaign supporting the new turbo version of Regal, "We are still working through the concepts of what that will look like but it's going to be a new direction." He says that although Leo Burnett remains AOR, "We have new people who have come in and have helped us chart a new path. The campaign for Turbo is probably where you will see us take a different direction."

Bierley hints that Buick will be revealing a lot more than cars at next month's North American International Auto Show in Detroit. "We have a very cool way we are going to introduce Verano. My team -- the marketing team -- drove the way we are going to reveal it. And the way we reveal it will also unveil the entire social engagement platform for next year," he says.

Now if that's not a reason to go visit Detroit in January -- besides the chance to watch ice floes tooling around Lake St. Clair -- I don't know what is.

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