What last month was Daewoo is now Chevrolet. That’s quite a leap of imagination – but once you get your head round it, it starts to make sense. On February 1, Daewoo was declared dead as a car brand in Europe. The signs at dealers were switched overnight, and the next deliveries of Kaloses and Lacettis had the familiar gold Chevrolet ‘bow tie’ on the grille in place of the Daewoo ‘waterfall’.
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GM Europe vice president, sales, marketing and aftersales Jonathan Browning said there were two strong drivers behind the name change. “Firstly, our underlying concern was that we were not fully able to control the Daewoo name. The Daewoo group still exists in other industries, and although we had the right to use the name, we couldn’t develop it as a car brand in isolation,” he said.
“Secondly there was an underlying desire within GM to see some of our brand stable spreading their footprints worldwide. We identified three brands that we believed could become global brands – Saab, Cadillac and Chevrolet.”
It is Chevrolet that will receive the major push, as it is being built up to compete head-on with established ‘world brands’ such as Ford and Toyota. Browning describes Chevrolet as GM’s “foundation brand”, sold in just about every market where GM has a presence. Only in Korea and Vietnam will cars be sold with Daewoo badges. “The idea to do this with Chevrolet was in GM’s mind before we bought Daewoo,” Browning said.
The clincher was simply that there were “fewer negatives” with the Chevrolet brand than with Daewoo. Browning said he could foresee situations where there could be negative impact on car sales from the Daewoo name – he cited an example of an industrial dispute over the closure of a Daewoo electronics plant in France.
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By GlobalDataChevrolet, on the other hand, had no real negatives other than a perception of it as an American brand – and therefore as a producer of big, gas-guzzling cars. If there is a problem, it’s the sheer Americanness of Chevrolet – at a time when America’s national ‘brand image’ is at an all-time low in the world. A Chevy (’57 model, natch) is driven to a levee, not to Tesco or Carrefour.
This is a double-edged sword. Chevy’s iconic status means high brand recognition – UK awareness levels of 93% are higher than Kia, for example. “It’s unquestionably a car brand, but we have to flesh out what that means,” said Browning.
In America, Chevrolet is the most ‘blue-collar’ of all car brands. Its perception outside the US is of a more prestigious brand than it appears from within. The Corvette model must take some of the blame for this – and GM has addressed this issue by moving Corvette out of the Chevrolet global portfolio and putting in with Cadillac – it will be sold through Cadillac’s new network, badged simply as “Corvette”, with no mention of Chevrolet. “Are we trying to aim Chevrolet at the car enthusiast? No,” said Browning.
GM has also been encouraged by the success of Daewoo-built models in the US. Chevrolet UK managing director Andy Carroll said 56,000 units of the Kalos were sold last year in the US (where it is called the Aveo), making it market leader in its segment. “If America can buy a small Chevrolet, we should have no problem over here,” he said.
Chevrolet’s “honest and straightforward” launch advertising will be “informal and adult in tone” and will tackle the brand’s perception head-on. Certainly, analysts believe the brand will work in Europe. Alan Cole, Consultant for Glass’s Market Intelligence, believes the name change will have a positive impact: “Chevrolet is a well-known and internationally respected brand name. It is a familiar marque to many, with a heritage Daewoo never had the time to develop. It is very likely that the Chevrolet brand will lift the current image of Daewoo in much the same way that Nissan achieved with Datsun in the early 1980s.”
The Chevrolet range is being re-established around the outgoing Daewoo range. All Daewoo model names – Matiz, Kalos, Lacetti and Tacuma – will continue. The three-door version of the Kalos hatchback has now been launched, and a facelifted Matiz goes on sale in March. The company’s corporate ID will be refreshed in 2005, but the basic colour scheme of dark blue and gold would continue.
Next summer a sports-utility vehicle, shown at Paris as the S3X concept, will join the range. This is likely to be built as a 4×4 and as a two-wheel drive version. And next year three- and four-cylinder diesels will be added to most models. These Euro IV-compliant engines have been developed in conjunction with VM Motori of Italy and are to be built at a new $200 million plant in Kunsan, Korea.
Also in 2006, the Evanda large saloon will join the range. This car is the successor to the Daewoo Leganza and will only be available as a four-door sedan. Carroll said that while large Korean cars have traditionally been difficult to sell in Europe, a large Chevrolet might be more marketable – as customers would expect there to be a larger model in the range. Browning added: “The portfolio will change and become more GM-owned.” There was a US influence in the Matiz makeover, he said, though all design and engineering work continues to be done at the GM Daewoo technical centre in Kunsan.
In the future, Carroll does not discount the possibility of importing US-built Chevys. The retro-styled HHR people mover “could be fun in Europe”, while pick-up trucks could also figure. “There are also opportunities above and below the S3X for other SUVs,” he added.
However, the Chevrolet Niva – built in Russia by AvtoVAZ – will not be part of the west European range, as GM Europe does not believe Russian quality is yet up to scratch. These cars will be exported in some European markets under the Lada brand, but not to the UK as there is no RHD version.
Browning wants to rebuild brand sales in Europe to a level above Daewoo’s best years, when it sold 190,000 units. After the company collapsed, sales tumbled, bottoming out at around 80,000. “We feel we would be successful if we could get above 200,000,” said Browning – noting that the best years of the ‘old’ Daewoo were bolstered by sales in Eastern Europe via FSO and other former communist plants that Daewoo had acquired as part of its ill-starred global drive.
Mark Bursa
