automotive

Q&A: Kim McCullough, Back At Land Rover

Range-Rover-Evoque

Imagine being away from home for 10 years, coming back and finding that someone redesigned your house. Kim McCullough might have felt a bit of that two months ago, when after a decade-long absence, she returned to Land Rover North America as Brand VP.

It's a bit of an understatement to say the brand has changed during that time. When McCullough was a marketer at the company in the late 1990s (she left in 2001 and took senior marketing roles during the ensuing years at Toyota, Lexus and Nissan), the brand had Discovery and Range Rover in its lineup -- true SUVs -- and was purely focused situating those vehicles on a bedrock of heritage, prestige and rough-hewn adventure.

McCullough comes back to an automaker that has not only changed locations and owners but has a larger, more diverse lineup of vehicles and broader vision. The company, once a division -- with Jaguar, Volvo and Aston Martin -- of Ford's defunct Premier Auto Group in Irvine, Calif., is now owned by Mumbai-based Tata Motors and has U.S. operations headquarters in Mahwah, N.J. Its portfolio reflects a totally different auto market reality: in addition to the traditional SUVs like Range Rover, it includes the Range Rover Sport, LR4, LR2 (which replaced Freelander) and a completely new vehicle coming this fall, the Range Rover Evoque, a smaller crossover designed -- among other things -- with an eye to improved gas mileage.

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The Evoque, which is also Land Rover's first new vehicle since Tata acquired the company in 2008, has benefited from a long pre-launch that began last year with the global City Shapers and Pulse of the City social media effort. That program spotlighted cultural influencers around the world. The company also launched the HelloEvoque.com teaser site. The latest element is "Being Henry," an interactive Web film that lets users affect the main character's life and get a virtual, personalized Evoque vehicle in the process. 

On May 21, the company will continue the global urban effort for Evoque with a series of simultaneous and simulcast concerts in New York, Milan and Shanghai. The New York concert features a performance by Cee-Lo Green.

McCullough talks with Marketing Daily about the changed company and Evoque.

Q: What's it like being back at Land Rover?

KM: It is so great to be back at this brand. There is so much strength in the brand, with the Evoque coming and many launches after that. So it's a pretty exciting time. The whole time I was there before I launched one product, and here, I'm going to have something like annual launches for the next few years, so it really is a completely different opportunity.

Q: As an urban crossover, is Evoque being positioned differently than other vehicles in the portfolio?

KM: It's definitely a different expression of the brand, but what connects it to our other products is the breadth of capability. That's a hallmark of the brand. So even though we are positioning it as a city vehicle because it is a smaller Range Rover variant, it is also the most fuel-efficient one. So there are a lot of attributes that will appeal to someone who is looking for something different than what you normally associate with Land Rover and Range Rover.

Q: How will the Evoque buyer differ?

KM: The difference is psychographic. Already our profile is in the 40s [age group] and very affluent, so we don't see a huge change in that profile. But the goal of this product is to be about 90% conquest. So we are using it to reach out to a completely different audience. Stylistically, the design is really different; it stops people in their tracks. We feel it will appeal to someone looking for a more modern statement versus some of the other products out there and versus what they might normally expect from us.

Q: How about from the perspective of competitive models -- from what competitive vehicles will you expect to win new owners? Will they be crossovers?

KM: We'll see people from [BMW] X3, Infiniti EX; yes, this will reach out to those crossover drivers -- people who don't want that traditional SUV but need that flexibility and versatility in terms of the package of the vehicle itself.

Q: What was the genesis of "Being Henry?"

KM: It's really a continuation of pre-launch. We have the opportunity -- because this is not replacing a current product -- to spend quite a bit of time introducing the vehicle to a whole new group, so for us "Being Henry" is the next installment after "Pulse of the City" and "City Shapers." This is a chance to start building on the story we began with the social media efforts, and HelloEvoque.com, which began to seed the Evoque name. "Being Henry" lets us add aspects of the vehicle itself by connecting elements of personalization you can have with the product tied to the different narrative paths you can take in the interactive film.

Q: What's next?

KM: When pricing is released, there will be a more detailed configurator on our Web site so each piece of this whole campaign until launch keeps building.

Q: Even when you launch, will the campaign be weighted toward digital?

KM: We will still have some traditional elements because we are seeding a brand new name, but the digital components of the launch will be major. This will have larger interactive component than any of our other launches.

Q: Can you tell me something about Saturday's concert event?

KM: What's important, besides the concert itself, is the Evoque Experience that will be part of it: a chance to see the vehicle, a chance to interact with the "Being Henry" video, a chance to have an experience in addition to the concert. That experience will carry [at the as-yet-unannounced venue] for the week following the concert. And the Evoque Experience will also move to other cities throughout the country, probably in the July time frame.

Q: Why is the Evoque concert event global?

KM: It's a global vehicle. Land Rover is global, but also it's part of the part of the global "Pulse of the City" campaign and our global "City Shapers" effort, so that's why we wanted to make it aligned across three major cities. The piece that makes it special is the simultaneous connection around the globe: the New York event at 11 a.m., Shanghai at 11 at night and Milan splitting the difference. We will have one act from each of the markets simulcast to the other ones. It's the global nature of it that sets it apart.

Q: Are you planning, generally, more experiential events?

KM: Yes, the two areas that will be emphasized are interactive and digital and then the experiential side. Those will be the focus on the launch.

Q: When you look at Land Rover's lineup, how important is Evoque, both in terms of sales volume and as part of the portfolio strategy?

KM: It's critical. With so much product coming down the road, Evoque is important because it allows us to reach out to a new audience we feel we can grow with. Evoque will be a high-volume product from a brand standpoint -- it should be our second-highest volume model. That this will bring in new people, and help set up the brand for the future really make it a critical launch for us from a foundational standpoint.

 

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