Products nowadays seem to be more about the accompanying merchandise than the product themselves, and the keystone in this marketing strategy appears to be coming up with saleable items that are considered cool. We are used to this tactic in promoting films and TV shows from the plethora of plastic toys, tee shirts and mouse mats available on eBay. I would have said in the shops, but there don’t seem to be many of them about now. In fact, it is the prolific advancement in the popularity of online shopping that has boosted the trend for such merchandise. If every product needed a shop shelf, the high street would be overrun with novelty gift shops. One of the new contenders on the block when it comes to promotional accessories is in the car marketing industry. But just how do they hope to encourage potential customers to buy their product? Or is it the case that the accessories available are for people who are already owners.
Having spent a while in Monaco, where cars are big, shiny, fast and incredibly expensive; having a Ferrari tee shirt, belt or wallet is considered a fine sign of outward pride. The guys and gals that are sporting these wares are generally genuinely owners of a Ferrari. In Britain however, the average Joe that wanders around in a Ferrari baseball cap in fact owns a Ford Fiesta. Thankfully, the Italian brand with it’s prancing pony is actually iconic enough in itself to be a fashion item. A bit like wearing an England football shirt when everyone knows you are definitely not on the team.
Volvo accessories on the other hand are probably only bought by people that drive Volvos. I can’t imagine a Porsche driver swanking about with a key fob that is for a different class of car, and I can’t image someone who drives a Citroen having any Volvo accessories either. Having said that, I do remember a friend of mine, back in the 1980s having a puffer style jacket that was worn by rally marshals, emblazoned with the Volvo logo. I desperately wanted that jacket and I owned a Fiesta; oddly enough so did she. It was the cool factor of the rally association that made it desirable though, and without the marketing teams of the time knowing it, there was a product right there that we were interested in, because it was cool.
It is this angle of opportunity that the guys at Vauxhall have employed in advertising the Corsa. The clever use of in-yer-face woolly toys with rude boy attitudes has given the Corsa an edge over it’s opponents. The C’mon dolls as they are called are one bit of merchandise that has nothing at all to do with the product. They don’t wear Corsa clothes, they aren’t emblazoned with the Corsa logo and they certainly are not a car. They are desirable though; but as much as I want one, at no point do I want to go out and purchase one of Vauxhall’s cars. Is this a marketing ploy that is vastly backfiring? A car company surely cannot make a profit on sales of woolly toys alone, you would have to sell roughly 1000 C’mon dolls to equal the purchase of a Corsa. At least with people that are buying the Volvo accessories, they are driving the car as well as wearing the tee shirt and sporting the key fob. What an incredibly sensible marketing system.
Dom Donaldson is an expert in the motoring industry.
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