Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

Emily,

In much the same way that you would advertise the most basic features/benefits. A very basic example is how Jaguar advertised the quiet ride. It means nothing to a family of 4 kids. They know it will be loud in the car anyway. But to people who drive alone or with their spouse, the quiet is a great benefit.

Michael

Emily

It’s all in the words you use and the way you choose to use them. The reader does the differentiating and selects for themselves the feeling of exclusiveness they think that they deserve.

Rolls Royce: (1960’s) At 70 mph all you can hear is the ticking of the clock.

Bentley: (1960-1990) Power Output: Adequate.

Bristol Car Company Press Release: We choose not to provide press releases for our dealers because we choose not to have dealers.

Ferrari: As there are so few Ferraris on the road in the UK, here’s a picture of one to remind you what they look like. (On a poster 1980’s)

Porsche: (To the financial press, whose readers account for about 60% of all owners) Yes, a Porsche is exclusive. That’s because we manufacture at least one less than the market demands.

Mercedes SL 500 convertible: 0 to open in about 27 seconds

Maserati Quattroporte : It’s spacious enough to fit a standard super-car inside it, so that’s what we did. (It’s true, I’ve got one)

BMW 750: With 12 cylinders, in the unlikely event that half of them stop working, you can limp home at 137 mph on the remaining 6.

And so on. You are limited only by your imagination and your ability to conceive the levels of smugness and conceit which will tickle premium brand purchasers!

Steve Alker
Unimax Solutions

You asked: "How can a premium brand advertise feature/benefit and still remain premium?"

I don't understand the dichotomy you seem to be implying. Do you think features and benefits are somehow mutually exclusive with a premium positioning?

Why not conduct some consumer research among your target audience and find out what features and benefits they attribute to various brands of automobiles? Then find out what brand(s) they own/intend to buy. That should lead you to the features and benefits that are most important to your target audience.

WHY is the automobile brand premium? Surely it's more than the fact that they charge a lot of money. They must deliver something that customers perceive to be "premium." Your challenge is to identify THAT and use it as the primary feature/benefit in your promotion planning and development.

I'm a bit confused by the question since the term premium is bandied about much too often -- so it means different things to different folks.

It's essential to determine who the target markets are, what their preferences and needs are, see where your product matches thoses lists then highlight those "matches" as the benefits to your targets.

Good luck

A premium brand in the automotive business? A features orientation? People don't buy features, they buy benefits. When it comes to cars, it seems more like people buy these cars as a statement about themselves. The higher the price, the more the values must address the consumer's view of themself.

Honda -- I'm practical!

Porsche -- I'm virile!

Mercedes -- I'm rich!

Explorer -- I'm powerful!

Connect all those cool engineering features to the proper self-expressive benefits. Drill down in the luxury features and what the consumer feels that those feasture say about them.