BRAND FOCUS Audi head of marketing Michael Renz reveals that the German premium marque has quite a few goals in mind that will steer the brand to even greater heights

By Justin Lee in Paris, France

AUDI’S FORTUNES ARE on the rise judging from the brand’s sterling sales performance in the first half of the year in Singapore. It was also voted the most coveted luxury car brand in Germany in a recent survey conducted by Time magazine for its luxury issue.

With Audi gaining brand cachet and customers by the minute, it is becoming more and more of a threat to the incumbent luxury car brands namely Mercedes Benz and BMW. This is due in no small part to the style, performance and quality of the cars but also the marketing efforts done by the company. Audi’s head of marketing Michael Renz reveals more about what makes the brand tick.

He said that different markets have dissimilar needs but the most important thing when marketing Audi is to make it fascinating for the future and present customers.

“Creating a strong model line-up is very important and this is especially so at Audi where we want to make the brand highly appealing to future and present customers so that they will stay loyal to the brand or make it their first choice when buying a car.

“This means that we constantly listen to what they want and produce the type of cars that they will buy. In making halo cars like the R8 supercar, we want to highlight the qualities of Audi like how we are a very progressive and innovative company. This creates a type of emotional pull to the brand for our customers,” he said.

And the marketing of Audi also extends to placements in movies judging from the recent tie-up with Iron Man where Robert Downey Jr’s character drove an R8 and Gwyneth Paltrow an S5. Mr Renz reveals that the Iron Man movie placement will not be Audi’s last.

“We are in very close contact with many different movie studios around the world and if there are scripts which are a good fit with Audi’s image we will let our cars be shown in the movie,” he said.

Getting people into Audis also means starting to cultivate customers from a young age according to him.

“Brand building starts from an early age and we have to start educating the young what Audis are all about and we recently found out that for the young aged between 15 to 25 Audi is a driver focused car and is not a faddish type of brand,” he said.

Mr Renz went on to discuss the type of customers that Audi is attracting. He said that in Europe at least Audi buyers are getting younger and the typical buyer of the brand’s cars are not status oriented and highly educated.

“The number one purchase reason for our customers is design. This is highly appreciated by our customers and next comes the high quality, innovation and attention to detail that Audis are renown for,” he said.

On whether the Vorsprung durch Technik (advancement through technology in German) tagline which has been used since the 1970s will be retired as what parent company did with its previous tagline Aus Liebe Zum Automobile (out of love for the car in German) to Das Auto (the car in German), Mr Renz said that it will never be retired as long as he holds the post of head of marketing.

“This tagline reflects very closely what Audi is all about. It is a highly innovative and technological driven brand. We progress through technology and this can be seen in the many innovations that are closely associated with the Audi brand such as the Audi aluminium space frame technology and TDI diesel engines,” he said.

Hybrid and electric cars have been touted as the way of the future by some car companies and when queried on whether Audi will produce such cars Mr Renz said it all has to depend on the customer demand.

“There is a future for hybrids and even electric cars in the Audi lineup but we must be careful to implement this type of technology only when it suits the purpose of the car. This can be seen in the recently unveiled A1 Sportsback concept where there is a hybrid drivetrain for the car as this type of vehicle is mostly used in the city where the fuel savings in driving a hybrid are highest,” he said.

There is one thing that can be clearly seen from this interview and that is the future for Audi is a very bright and successful one.