Vfacts feb. 2014

[BP'93]

Any detailed figures for Ford, Holden, Honda, Toyota, Mazda and Volkswagen???

[BHDOGS]

With the mustang being introduced to Australia in 2015 it will be interesting i tip the falcon will be dead by that time.

[Nikked]

Originally Posted by xrystl

WHAT - Ford have a Marketing department ? , would never have guessed .

Yeah, they heavily market the Focus, Fiesta, Ranger, Kuga etc...you know, cars that the company will rely upon in 3 years time...so they have to build awareness and build up a reputation that the have cars to take up against Corollas, Rav 4's, Hilux's and Mazda 3's. So the company can make sales numbers and turn a profit.


That marketing department.

[irish2]

Originally Posted by Wretched

Explain how it isn't continuous? The article i posted in bold stated it was. 75 years without a break, seems continuous to me.

I already explained it. "Third generation Suburbans were built in model years 1941, 1942, and 1946." Therefore not a continuous production vehicle.

[russellw]

Having made the comment in the monthly summary that Mitsubishi and VW were both edging closer to the current Top 6 manufacturers (Toyota, Mazda, Holden, Hyundai, Ford and Nissan), I thought it might be a good time to see how each of those has performed against the market during the last 14 years.

The charts below look at their relative performance split into manageable groups. Ideally, these should really be scatter graphs as they are mapping points but the trends aren't really clear enough using scatter graphs so they are lines instead.

Firstly, the local three - Toyota, Holden, Ford. In all these charts, the black line represents the movement in the market for the year - for example, the market was up slightly in 2000 (the black line is above zero).

For those who prefer raw data, here it is. Where the manufacturer has outperformed the market growth they are shaded in green and where they have underperformed they are shaded red.



Now the individual charts:

Toyota, Holden and Ford. Toyota has underperformed the overall market growth by a couple of percentage points with 2009 and 2011 being noticeably bad (one because of the Tsunami impact) but otherwise mostly steady. Holden and Ford have both significantly underperformed the market growth with only a handful of good years between them.



Mazda, Nissan, Hyundai. All three of these have significantly outperformed the market growth over the 14 year period with Mazda best in showing 74.2% growth when the market grew 30.5%. Nissan has had a mixed bag of years with some good but also some very bad and 2014 looks like being another of the latter. Hyundai was a significant undererachiever until 2004 but has been mostly strong since.



Mitsubishi and Volkswagen. The newer kids on the block in terms of growth, VW has seen the best growth over the 14 year period (at 88.7%) while Mitsubishi has significantly underperformed although they are still at least in the black and the steady growth since they stopped local manufacturing in early 2008 shows that there is life after local manufacturing.



Cheers
Russ

[xrystl]

Originally Posted by Nikked

Yeah, they heavily market the Focus, Fiesta, Ranger, Kuga etc...you know, cars that the company will rely upon in 3 years time...so they have to build awareness and build up a reputation that the have cars to take up against Corollas, Rav 4's, Hilux's and Mazda 3's. So the company can make sales numbers and turn a profit.


That marketing department.

I suppose you mean the "cringe worthy" Focus/Festiva adverts , Does anyone actually buy a Ford based on those adverts? , they would discourage me from buying those vehicles and I'm pretty much a Ford person - IMHO the Ford marketing department and the hopelessness of most of the dealers sales personnel and the "NON" service departments are the reason people don't buy the Ford brand , once you have been reamed by them you know well enough to keep away .
The Falcon is a good car but Ford lost their way in telling the population how good it is - IMHO the last good Ford advert was for the Fairlaine G220 , now that was the ad that would tempt me to buy one .

[nstg8a]

Originally Posted by xrystl

and I'm pretty much a Ford person

Your not the target audience, ford knows ford people will buy fords, will know the model range etc, the ads are aimed at,IMHO, those who don't know fords, the people who get sucked in by the weird advertising.

Same reason they didn't advertise falcon, falcon buyers already know the model and advertising might only gain them a few extra sales so the roi isn't there.

[Wretched]

Originally Posted by irish2

I already explained it. "Third generation Suburbans were built in model years 1941, 1942, and 1946." Therefore not a continuous production vehicle.

That doesn't mean it isn't continuous.
Show me where it is documented that the Falcon is the longest serving continuous nameplate in the automotive world.

It is AUSTRALIA's longest serving nameplate and ranks high worldwide but it is NOT the world's longest serving continuous nameplate.

[Cuyper]

Originally Posted by zoomie

Id like to know the % how many of the 2777 cumodores sold in Feb were bought by private buyers, im guessing maybe 25-30%.
Fleet sales although good sales numbers will always hit Holdens bottom line due to fleets paying nowhere near RRP.

Thats one thing Mazda has with its customers, nearly all are private buyers and nearly all will pay close to advertised price

You think?. Ive only seen five VF Commodores around town but every single one of them is a SS of some variant. I didn't originally like the look of the VF however I saw a green one the other day and it was literally stunning, made my heart skip a beat. What as fantastic colour on that car.

[xrystl]

Originally Posted by nstg8a

Your not the target audience, ford knows ford people will buy fords, will know the model range etc, the ads are aimed at,IMHO, those who don't know fords, the people who get sucked in by the weird advertising.

Same reason they didn't advertise falcon, falcon buyers already know the model and advertising might only gain them a few extra sales so the roi isn't there.

If the unsuspecting public get sucked in by the stupid advertisement's then God save us from ourselves .
If Ford are happy with selling 500 or so Falcons a month then so be it , however perhaps some CLEVER advertising of the EGas and Ecoboost models would shift them out of the yards where they are stored and into peoples garages , the Ecoboost by all accounts is a ripper of a car , it's just a pity that the public know nothing about it !

[XR Martin]

Mate, a Falcon could come with a teleporter and people still wouldnt buy it.
The image of Falcon is up there with the KT26; the die hards will still buy them but you wont get any new buyers no matter how hard you try.

[MrZ]

Originally Posted by Cuyper

You think?. Ive only seen five VF Commodores around town but every single one of them is a SS of some variant. I didn't originally like the look of the VF however I saw a green one the other day and it was literally stunning, made my heart skip a beat. What as fantastic colour on that car.

It was probably just the shock of seeing a new car of any kind in dark green. That colour hasn't been around in so long that when you do see it, it really stands out (the only greens offered on Commodores in the past 10 years have been bright ones).

[Nikked]

Originally Posted by irish2

I already explained it. "Third generation Suburbans were built in model years 1941, 1942, and 1946." Therefore not a continuous production vehicle.

Doesn't that just signify what spec the car is?

Remember they didn't have model codes like we do. So, the Falcon was "built in model years" '72 (XA), '73 (XB) '76 (XC)...do you then assume that the Falcon wasn't continuous production vehicle over that period?

[irish2]

Originally Posted by Nikked

Doesn't that just signify what spec the car is?

Remember they didn't have model codes like we do. So, the Falcon was "built in model years" '72 (XA), '73 (XB) '76 (XC)...do you then assume that the Falcon wasn't continuous production vehicle over that period?

No the Suburban actually ceased production during those years. No different to the Camaro and many other models. Demand wasn't there so they stopped production. In the case of the Suburban, the war stopped it.

[Adamz Ghia]

Everyone is forgetting the VW Beetle, the original only ceased production a couple of years ago...

[MrZ]

Originally Posted by Adamz Ghia

Everyone is forgetting the VW Beetle, the original only ceased production a couple of years ago...

Beetle wasn't a nameplate - the name was never officially used (except from 1998 onwards for the "New" Beetle). Only names like 1300, 1500, etc. were used for the original.

[jpd80]

Originally Posted by xrystl

If the unsuspecting public get sucked in by the stupid advertisement's then God save us from ourselves .
If Ford are happy with selling 500 or so Falcons a month then so be it , however perhaps some CLEVER advertising of the EGas and Ecoboost models would shift them out of the yards where they are stored and into peoples garages , the Ecoboost by all accounts is a ripper of a car , it's just a pity that the public know nothing about it !

It's all too late, the reasons that EcoLPI and Ecoboost were created... even the Falcon itself have all evaporated.
It would be just throwing good money after bad now that sales are so low...

[Nikked]

Originally Posted by irish2

the case of the Suburban, the war stopped it.

Only for civilian use, the Suburban was still built, but for military use only...and resumed in '45 for civilian use again...so really, for 2 years, because of the World war, civilian Suburbans were unavailable...


still sounds like a continuous name plate...

[Focused]

Originally Posted by xrystl

I suppose you mean the "cringe worthy" Focus/Festiva adverts , Does anyone actually buy a Ford based on those adverts? , they would discourage me from buying those vehicles and I'm pretty much a Ford person - IMHO the Ford marketing department and the hopelessness of most of the dealers sales personnel and the "NON" service departments are the reason people don't buy the Ford brand , once you have been reamed by them you know well enough to keep away .
The Falcon is a good car but Ford lost their way in telling the population how good it is - IMHO the last good Ford advert was for the Fairlaine G220 , now that was the ad that would tempt me to buy one .

And that's exactly the problem. You guys seem to think that Ford should be advertising to appeal to the enthusiasts on internet forums instead of the actual customer. Are you in the market for a G220-like car? What do you currently drive? You may have been tempted to buy one, but unless you're actually willing to put down your hard earned cash for one, the ads mean very little. And since Ford only sold about 5* G220s, either the ads or the cars were at fault.
*Yes I'm exaggerating. But they obviously didn't sell enough to keep making it.

[xrystl]

Originally Posted by Focused

And that's exactly the problem. You guys seem to think that Ford should be advertising to appeal to the enthusiasts on internet forums instead of the actual customer. Are you in the market for a G220-like car? What do you currently drive? You may have been tempted to buy one, but unless you're actually willing to put down your hard earned cash for one, the ads mean very little. And since Ford only sold about 5* G220s, either the ads or the cars were at fault.
*Yes I'm exaggerating. But they obviously didn't sell enough to keep making it.

If at the time of the G220 advert I was in the market for a sedan I would have seriously considered the Fairlane , I thought it was a smart ad because it portrayed exactly what the vehicle was all about - Smart advertising sells the product poor advertising leaves it sitting on the shelf regardless of what the product is , Holden (from memory) use "George Patterson" as their ad agency and hats off to them because there ads work as there has only been a few lousy adverts come from that agency and a lot of the product that Holden sell is pretty ordinary and well below the comparable products from Ford .

[Focused]

Originally Posted by xrystl

If at the time of the G220 advert I was in the market for a sedan I would have seriously considered the Fairlane , I thought it was a smart ad because it portrayed exactly what the vehicle was all about - Smart advertising sells the product poor advertising leaves it sitting on the shelf regardless of what the product is , Holden (from memory) use "George Patterson" as their ad agency and hats off to them because there ads work as there has only been a few lousy adverts come from that agency and a lot of the product that Holden sell is pretty ordinary and well below the comparable products from Ford .

Exactly my point. I don't mean to be rude but unless you're in the market for such a car, you can't really critique the marketing of a product because you're not the target market. It would be like me saying that Oil of Olay's extra-magic women's shampoo has crap ads because there's no fighter jets or explosions.

PS: I cringe whenever I see the new Focus ads too. But I guess we're prob not the target market (yes I drive a Focus, but am more interested in the performance models...)

[xrystl]

Originally Posted by Focused

Exactly my point. I don't mean to be rude but unless you're in the market for such a car, you can't really critique the marketing of a product because you're not the target market. It would be like me saying that Oil of Olay's extra-magic women's shampoo has crap ads because there's no fighter jets or explosions.

PS: I cringe whenever I see the new Focus ads too. But I guess we're prob not the target market (yes I drive a Focus, but am more interested in the performance models...)

You're not being rude at all ,at the end of the day it's just a discussion Maybe I'm just too old @ 66 and things have changed too much ; In the first instance when I take any notice of an advert I look for what the feature is and why I should buy that particular product/or service and not it's competitors , for me the first impression is a lasting Impression (and probably is for many people) so if it doesn't whet the appetite or stir the loins in the first instance it's really not doing the job required of it , this brings me back to the Focus/Festiva ad where the punch line is than another Focus/Festiva owner will wave at you and the other ad where the punch line is the drawer under the seat to store a pair of shoes :WTF is that all about , and how many extra cars has that sold .

[jpd80]

Originally Posted by xrystl

You're not being rude at all ,at the end of the day it's just a discussion Maybe I'm just too old @ 66 and things have changed too much ; In the first instance when I take any notice of an advert I look for what the feature is and why I should buy that particular product/or service and not it's competitors , for me the first impression is a lasting Impression (and probably is for many people) so if it doesn't whet the appetite or stir the loins in the first instance it's really not doing the job required of it , this brings me back to the Focus/Festiva ad where the punch line is than another Focus/Festiva owner will wave at you and the other ad where the punch line is the drawer under the seat to store a pair of shoes :WTF is that all about , and how many extra cars has that sold .

So much has changes with advertising emphasis now, you won't see as much talk about features,
you're lucky to see a few short flashes of the car and lots of situational talking which leaves me cold.
It's all about showing enough to get people into dealerships asking technical questions there.

The marketing gurus say that's the way to reach people but to me maybe look at
Mazda ads and see how effectivly they work compared to the Ford ones..

Ford is now getting product holes filled but still seems to struggle with buyers..

[Nikked]

Originally Posted by jpd80

Ford is now getting product holes filled but still seems to struggle with buyers..

Bit of a double whammy, Ford have been considered a "one car company", and they relied on that one car to driver buyers into showrooms. Unfortunately when that model falls out of favour, and you have the lingering news of "ford leaving Australia", you can see why the brand confidence isn't real great...

Hopefully the falcon launch and Mustang will bring more attention to the brand...

[MrZ]

I think it would help Ford if their ads were clear and in focus, rather than blurry and shaky. I'm referring to the actual text in the ad, "Go Futher". It looks like it's shaky and not in focus, like you'd expect to see from the 1960s/70s.

[csv8]

Toyota have copied VW and now have a similar Family car ad !!!