New management, marketing budget, products and, in all likelihood, new dealers are all part of Alfa Romeo’s planned UK come-back.
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And a come-back is essential. Last year, the Fiat Auto brand managed a derisory 6,396 sales, for just 0.26% of the two million-plus UK car market.
Recently parachuted in were new managing director Christopher Nicoll, lately Fiat Auto managing director for Switzerland and Austria, accompanied by marketing director Nicholas Bernard, also late of the land of mountains and cheese.
They control a £6.5 million brand-reviving marketing budget and will spend half launching and selling the redesigned 159 range, which replaces the 156, which once sold 16,000 units in its best UK year.
The other half is ear-marked for the new Brera though the lion’s share will promote a new Spider due in April. This is seen as a prospective customer-luring ‘halo’ car justifying the disproportionate marketing spend on a relatively low volume model.
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By GlobalDataNicoll said: “The UK is a key growth market for Alfa Romeo but something must be wrong with our business operation as sales have continued to decline in recent years, down by 20% per cent last year.
“UK dealers certainly had big question marks about their future and that was not helped last year by us having no permanent senior management structure. Our 67 dealers now know our new direction and some will stay with us and some will go.
“I do not want to make bold promises at this stage because credibility for the new management team depends on actions not promises.”
Nicoll said Alfa now also had dedicated PR and fleet managers but a “weak” dealer network needed help planning its future strategy.
“We now have the right people in the right place. Our communication with the dealers and customers has been poor. We spent very little on marketing last year and we will shortly be using UK sourced television advertising for the first time in five years,” he added.
Nicoll promised that he would address the negative attitude of Alfa owners and prospective buyers towards the dealer network which is notorious for poor customer service.
“The UK has a very negative history for this brand. My own experiences as a student in London 18 years ago proved to me than owing an Alfa was very costly to keep the car on the road and this will change” he said.
“Our targets are realistic and modest and our ambition is to achieve around a 0.7 or 0.8% share of the UK car market in the future. Initially around 10,000 annual sales is the realistic target.”
