[chavez]

Originally Posted by Tourer

Clearly some big mistakes and poor thinking have been in play within Holden's marketing area for a little while now. Emma Pinwill left before she could be removed and her co-architect, Mark Harland appears to be on his way.

Decision to name the imported car Commodore, decision to turn their back publicly on the existing customer base (they're now back-peddling on that one), decision to market product in an airy-fairy way rather than promoting the benefits of the product itself, alleged disconnect from dealers, the list goes on.

It was ALWAYS going to be tough time for Holden as local manufacturing finished and they lack "hero" cars from other parts of the GM empire that they could use (as Ford Oz has done with Mustang & Focus RS) but dumb decisions on top of that have not helped the company's position.

For example, there are thousands of V8 engined Holden owners out there, many of whom have laid down $70K plus for their car in the last 18 months or so. If Holden came out now and announced that they'd have RHD Camaros, or Caddys or whatever in 2020, many of those existing owners might wait for those cars before replacing what they have now - but in a vacuum of information, those owners might swap to another brand before Holden's plans are announced.

Just feels like Holden's marketing approach has gone from people actually doing stuff to people just wanting to sound smart, from substance to fluff - at some point heads would have had to roll and it sounds like that is happening.

Speaking with a close friend last week who works at Holden he said much the same thing.

He can't believe how Holden have gone out of their way to alienate their loyal customers.

Although he does agree with the continued use of the Commodore name. I disagreed on that one with him.