Geraldine Davis

HOLDEN is calling on five prominent young Australians to become its “CARstodians” as the company refines its direction and prepares for a smooth exit from domestic manufacturing.

In a new marketing thrust aimed at retaining its customers and making the company relevant in a changing market, it has enlisted AJF Partnership to create a campaign that Holden’s executive director of marketing Geraldine Davys calls “future-proofing the company”.

Holden’s CARstodians campaign and marketing activity, starting this month, features five personalities – actors Claudia Karvan and Matthew Le Nevez, chef and restaurateur Luke Nguyen, pro-surfer Nikki Van Dijk and fashion entrepreneur Jane Lu.

“The people in the campaign embody what we want the brand to be,” Ms Davys said.

“They are young, genuine, real, successful, confident and build credibility to Holden. We are getting great feedback on this campaign and it’s a long way from using screaming retail banners.”

The announcement of the campaign comes as Holden is losing market share. The June VFACTS figures show Holden sales are down 4.6 per cent for the month, while the market is up 2.2 per cent.

In year-to-date figures, Holden is down 7.2 per cent compared with the total market which is up 3.4 per cent.

Holden’s market share this year to June 30 is 8.0 per cent, down from 8.9 per cent in the corresponding period in 2015.

But Ms Davys said Holden was confident that its fortunes can be reversed.

“With the new product coming we will address changing consumer (tastes) in the market,” she said.

“We need to continue to push hard in product, customer experience and build a future for Holden. We have a great team and a strong marketing budget.

“One visible change will be to refresh the logo, livery and colour palette of the brand. We haven’t had a massive change in the brand identification for about 20 years so it is time to freshen it up.

“But we don’t have a schedule on this. It is still under discussion.

“We really have to tell our story in a different way,” she said.

“We have to future-proof our brand and appeal to a younger market, the female buyer and a multi-cultural audience. This is the modern Australia.”

With the demise of the Commodore late next year, Ms Davys said making product that appeals to customers in the future was important.

“Customers may move from Commodore to other variants, such as SUVs and utes,” she said.

“We have to understand the customer and have the right product. Our customer base is very important.

“We will soon launch the new Colorado. It has a male-dominated audience but it is also bought as a family vehicle.

“The new Astra will be launched at the end of the year and its focus is on both a male and female audience and in a sector where we will have strong competition.”

Ms Davys said Holden conducted many focus groups to find out what Australians want.

“We talked to a lot of people – in and out of the industry – and recognise that we absolutely have to drive the brand at our heartland customer,” she said.

“However, we need to be aware that 85 per cent of the purchase decision of a vehicle is made by women – so that is where we have to spend time.

“We are also changing the customer experience. We have a customer experience manager so we know the right way of dealing with female customers.

“Our research when we launched the Spark model showed a lot of young women didn’t like the experience of going into a dealerships, so we introduced pop-ups. So we brought the sales point to where the customer goes.”

Ms Davys said the television advertisements in the current campaign were just the first instalment to what is planned to be a long-running program.

“This is an evolutionary campaign for what is an iconic brand. The brand campaign that is aimed at product starts in September,” she said.

“We will introduce 24 new models over five years and that’s at least the length of the marketing change that we have now started.”

By Neil Dowling

Nikki Van Dijk