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A RENEWED tilt at the fleet market and a refocus on family buyers is raising hopes that flagging sales of Kia Motors Australia’s (KMAu) second-biggest seller, the Sportage mid-size SUV, will rebound.

Its mid-life makeover released last week now targets a broader family audience with a television advertising campaign (TVC) to start on Sunday.

KMAu chief operating officer Damien Meredith said the SUV had a strong market for younger couples with small families but that the TVC now broadened interest to show how the car could enhance the lives of its owners.

The Sportage was always a strong seller but in recent months sales have dipped under pressure from rivals including the Mazda CX-5 that dominates the mid-size SUV segment.

The TVC, produced by KMAu’s agency Innocean, starts on Sunday and carries the theme “Feeling Young Never Gets Old”.

Kia Sportage

KMAu general manager of marketing, Manuel Tyras, said the ad “is aimed at young families”.

“The insight is that they are adjusting to life with kids, but still have that youthful, adventurous spirit. The theme ‘date night’ allows us to bring that insight to life with a fun twist at the end.

“The TVC launches on Sunday and will be accompanied by a full digital launch.”

At the same time, Mr Meredith told GoAutoNews Premium that more emphasis will be placed on fleets.

“For fleets, the (entry-level) Si fits very well and has been popular in the previous model,” he said.

Kia Sportage

“This new Sportage gives us a great opportunity to expand sales, particularly for user-choosers. We’ve noticed that, in particular, many of these are employees of major banks.”

Mr Meredith said that there were opportunities to develop the fleet segment “because at the moment, we’re not particularly strong”.

He also said there were no plans to increase dealer numbers beyond the current 132.

“We don’t expect that to change,” he said.

“We have added only eight dealers in the past four-and-a-half years and in that same period we have doubled sales volume. The number of sales per dealer has obviously increased dramatically.

“For this reason, Korea looks on Australia as being a very important market.”

By Neil Dowling

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