VW has spent the last seven months reviewing its global ad strategy, alighting on a regional approach. The switch to WPP displaces Interpublic’s Deutsch, which had been in place since 2009. WPP’s new team for VW will be called The VW Partnership. DDB loses the business in Europe.
The marketing changes come in the wake of a major pivot in product planning. In the wake of the Volkswagen diesel scandal, Dr. Herbert Diess, Chairman of the Board of Management of Volkswagen AG, told the Geneva Motor Show audience in 2016, “Volkswagen is changing.” The cars, he said, “will become younger, more emotional and more exciting.”
To an extent, VW has fulfilled that pledge. With diesel in the doghouse, a company that used to tout its superiority to electric mobility has dramatically changed its tune and is now fully committed to battery vehicles. “Our future lies with electric mobility,” said VW of America CEO Scott Keogh at the just-concluded Los Angeles Auto Show. “EVs will not kill our automotive fun.” On the company’s stand was an electric cargo bike and a delivery version of the I.D. Buzz, a rebirth of the famous Microbus that will be sold -- only with batteries -- starting in 2022.
Like all automakers, VW is also committed to SUVs -- which are 46 percent of its sales. But unlike the Big Three automakers, it is not largely abandoning regular passenger cars. Keogh told me that we will eventually see the sedan market rebound, but not to the dominant position it once had. “We’re going to stick with sedans, but be smart about it,” Keogh said. One probably savvy move was finally killing the poor-selling Beetle; the last one will be a 2019 model Final Edition Malibu convertible (pictured at top).
With all that as background, MediaVillage posed some questions to Jim Zabel (pictured below), VW’s Senior Vice President of Marketing.
Jim Motavalli: How does VW perceive the sedan market these days?
Jim Zabel: It is true that the sedan market is shrinking but it is still a Top Five segment in the U.S. We remain committed to sedans and believe that you win with strong design, reliability and consumer-focused technology.
Motavalli: Are the automakers, including VW, ahead of consumers in offering electric cars?
Zabel: Just speaking for Volkswagen, our offerings have been according to the demand. As that demand is growing, so will our offering of electric