Monday 1st September 2014

Marketing matters: PH Blog

Value for money versus pose value - Dan drives the Cupra back to back with a Golf GTI

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We get terribly hung up over numbers when it comes to our cars, don't we? I'll put this down to the fact that before we could all actually drive we had two things to go on in order to rank the cars we dreamed over.

You could base argument on the quality of the reviewing journalist's adjectives and overblown metaphors. Or you could skip straight to the data panel at the end and go by the numbers. Those debates have moved from the playground and pub into the virtual world but data will always (top) trump purple prose, right?

Does the SEAT's value leave the Golf trailing?

Not necessarily! Obviously I have personal interest here in making the fuzzy stuff about how a car makes you feel and the more descriptive comparisons matter too. Furthermore, taking Matt's Leon Cupra 280 along to the photoshoot for our Golf GTI marketwatch was very revealing. A back to back comparison with the VW booked in for modelling duties raised plentiful questions about value for money, perceived and actual.

Let's get some numbers out of the way first. A 280hp SEAT Leon Cupra 280 three-door with a manual gearbox like the basis of Matt's car would cost you £26,945. The commendably bare bones three-door 220hp Golf GTI manual we had lists at £26,330. Golf cheaper shocker.

Until you try and spec it to some sort of parity with the Leon. To get the VAQ diff the SEAT has as standard add £995, for 19s another £985 and for a basic nav (again standard on the Leon) a further £750, adding up to £29,060 - an additional £2,115. And even with the GTI Performance power bump it's still 50hp down.

Bring out the score cards and you've got a SEAT based on the same platform as the Golf with identical engine and transmission but more power and effectively costing over £2,000 less.

So why, given the choice - or perhaps a pair of test drives from respective dealerships - would I have driven away in the Golf, happily two grand and a few horsepower lighter?

Numbers only tell half the story in this comparison

I'd say it's an indefinable character, seasoned with a bit of vanity that'd make me willing to accept less power for more money. But that does a disservice to the giant spreadsheet I'd like to think exists somewhere in Wolfsburg that charts and plots the exact pricing and attributes for each platform sharing product. Both brand hierarchy and customer expectation need to be managed, after all.

From driving both I can see only one possible explanation - that SEAT was handed all the parts, permitted an on-paper power advantage for marketing benefit (torque is actually identical on both at 258lb ft and performance near identical) but instructed to make the package 5.95 per cent less satisfactory than the Golf by every key measure. OK, I made that figure up. But I bet there's a figure like it somewhere, I'll swear.

In practice this meant the SEAT's gearshift is 5.95 per cent more flaccid than the Golf's, the brakes 5.95 per cent more grabby, the steering 5.95 per cent less pleasing, the power delivery 5.95 per cent less modulated, the NVH 5.95 per cent less favourable and so on. Having driven the SEAT up to the shoot along a favourite B-road and been astonished by both the outrageous performance and total lack of involvement therein the Golf just felt ... nicer. And no slower.

At every level the SEAT screams bang for buck, value for money, hp per £ or whatever objective comparison you want to throw at it. But the moment your bum hits the tartan cloth of the Golf's seat there's just an involuntary sigh of (self) satisfaction. But maybe I'm just a sucker.

Discuss.

Dan

Photos: Anthony Fraser

[r11co]

What a load of subjective bullcrap. The 5.95% you refer to is called the placebo effect.

[r11co]

It's all about perceived value, and it very rarely has anything to do with anything quantifiable, which is why the 5.95% allegory is a load of crap. It is an attempt to justify brand image.

Very often manufacturers ride perceived value in an attempt to cut costs when times are lean, or to milk loyal customers. Look at the dip in quality of Mercedes products around the W201 era, or the switch from cast aluminium to pressed steel suspension parts and then the move from wishbone to trailing arm suspension on the Honda Civic, or the deliberate dialling in of understeer on the F30 BMW to cheaply overcome the need for staggered tyre sizes on the E90 platform it was derived from. All products that were perceived to be 'good' in their current form, and the goodwill is milked for the next version. That's what happens when psycophants give credence to perceived value - as if it exists as a consequence of something more than image (which this article attempts to do).

B brands exist because some customers do not like to be milked, or want to keep the manufacturer honest. These customers decide with head rather than heart and will go elsewhere otherwise.

Edited by r11co on Monday 1st September 14:01

[r11co]

RacerMike said:

You appear to have missed the point of that number. I don't believe Dan was using 5.95% as an exact figure

And...it's also not a load of subjective bullcrap. VW definitely will have an 'attribute positioning spreadsheet' which will place various cars above and below each other to appeal to different people.

Actually, no - I've got the point very well, and my post about perceived value should have made that clear. I've no doubt that manufacturers have their spreadsheets, but as I said - the minute you attempt to turn perceived value into something tangible and quantifiable, and admit that you think it is worth buying into you open the door for being fleeced. That is what allows manufacturers to reel-back the quality once in a while (eg. Mk IV Golf) - the perceived value will make up the difference in the mindset of the brainwashed.

Think of nouvelle cuisine - at the extremes you can pay a fortune to leave a restaurant hungry and malnourished, thus completely missing the point of the experience for the sake of the perceived image.

I'm not saying we should not respect a good product, but respect it for what it actually is.

Edited by r11co on Monday 1st September 15:18

[r11co]

RacerMike said:

Trust me when I say this. I work as an attribute engineer for a car company.

Why am I inclined to distrust you with a job title like that and an admitted vested interest?

Pardon me for being cynical, but if any company can create the impression that they have engineered an improvement into something simply by sticking a better brand name on it then that is worth a lot more to them than actually doing it. We are both talking about bottom lines here after all.

It is very difficult to find test cases for this though, so the doubt can remain. The only example I can think of was the 4th generation Ford Fiesta and the Mazda 121 of the same era. Exactly the same car bar the badges, the front grille and some plastic trim on the tailgate, yet the 121 had a higher list price due to the perceived quality of Japanese cars - despite them rolling off the same production line in Spain. Manufacturers will do it if they can get away with it, and no-one will argue either!

[r11co]

ghibbett said:

If you know what an Attribute Engineer does, then you'll know he (or she) is better placed to judge the nuances of 'similar' vehicles than not just Joe Public, but the majority of the Motoring Press.

Weasel words! I have no idea exactly what an attribute engineer does (although I could probably take an educated guess), so unless you tell us you are just being smarmy.

Again, pardon the distrust but this sounds like exactly the sort of waffle and puff designed to disguise a lack of substance. You're telling me I just don't 'get it', and neither does everyone else for that matter.

The ones that do 'get it' are rewarded with a lighter wallet and a feeling of being part of the club, although no-one ever gets told exactly what being in the club really entails (because that would give the game away).

The more I think about it the more the article reads as a propaganda piece for exactly the above viewpoint, only with an attempt to argue it rationally.

Edited by r11co on Monday 1st September 17:18

[r11co]

ghibbett said:

An Attribute Engineer is someone who is trained to evaluate and quantify vehicle attributes, for example steering feel, seat comfort, or throttle response. The attributes of the vehicle that are subjective and cannot be defined by numbers but by comparison and experience.

Sounds like the job description of a car reviewer to me.

Seems the only reason for the fancy job title is to indicate which side of the fence you are on [cynic]although your wages probably come from the same pot[/cynic].

plfrench said:

Amazing the number of people who use marketing as a derogatory term despite the fact that they all buy solutions defined by a marketing department somewhere!

Really? Are you suggesting that every product started with a marketing exercise? I thought Douglas Adams was being satirical when he came up with the character of the Golgafrinchan marketing girl.

Edited by r11co on Monday 1st September 19:38

[r11co]

RacerMike said:

Ultimately those on here who wish to be cynical, can continue to be so if they wish, and clearly they will do as I doubt anything anyone says on here will change their opinion that the badges just get swapped. The reality of it is that this just simply isn't the case for any modern car.

More weasily words! Of course they don't just swap badges anymore as that is too transparent. The game now is to create enough doubt in peoples' minds that they are not the same product in order to justify selling at two different price points (it has to look different, it has to be called something different), despite there being no difference where it actually matters, and I suspect that is exactly what you are doing above!

[r11co]

RacerMike said:

I literally have no idea what you mean by weasily words?

A weasel word (also, anonymous authority) is an informal term for words and phrases aimed at creating an impression that a specific and/or meaningful statement has been made, when in fact only a vague or ambiguous claim has been communicated.

You tell us you work in the industry in unspecific terms - anonymous authority! You generalise about public opinion - vague ambiguous claims. I can't blame you though as it is clearly part of your training.

Wikipedia said:

Weasel words are likely to be used in advertising and in political statements, where encouraging the audience to develop a misleading impression of what was said can lead to advantages, at least in the short term (in the longer term, systematic deception is likely to be identified, with a loss of trust in the speaker).

Cynicism is a product of this sort of deception, not a hazard to be got round by it. I don't doubt that a lot of time and resources are put into engineering car traits, but I also do doubt that it is all done altruistically.

I take you back to my point about examples of cars that have been diminished from one generation to the next - the manufacturers clearly thought that the buyer would either not notice, not care or blind themselves to it due to faith in the product's image. Sometimes (subtle) marketing has to do even more than that - the change has to be managed to prevent fallout - a negative has to be promoted as a positive or attention has to be taken away from the change.

For example - the impending switch from rear to front wheel drive for the next BMW 1 series has been discussed at great length in PH. I am of the opinion that the sudden appearance of 'X-drive' badges on BMW saloons and the greater availablility of all-wheel drive versions of 3 and 5 series cars is part of this exercise to change the mindset of the BMW owner (or aspirational BMW owner) away from it being a rear-drive only marque.

Of course anyone in the know would be aware that it has been producing AWD vehicles for other markets for decades, but for a long time the RWD thing suited the marketing men in the UK as the BMW Ultimate Selling Point, plus they didn't want to be seen to be following Audi into the AWD saloon market - Audi had made it theirs in the mind of the UK buyer with 'Quattro'.

'S-drive' is the term BMW now apply to 2WD vehicles and I strongly suspect that it will be used to refer to both FWD and RWD cars when the next 1 series materialises, thus subtly suggesting commonality and glossing over the difference!

Edited by r11co on Tuesday 2nd September 12:37

[r11co]

RacerMike said:

Quite clearly anything I say will be met with total disbelief from you.

You wanted to know what weasel words were? Well, above is a classic example. You have asserted a result you have no actual evidence for in order to avoid having to come up with a full response.

I've mentioned a few times now several known examples where a manufacturer has produced a new generation of a well respected car where corners have been intentionally cut compared to its predecessor. You haven't even attempted to explain how that fits with your attribute engineering.

I have stated that I believe they feel they can get away with it because of the goodwill carried by the perceived value of the brand and model than of the objective qualities of the car itself - the same perceived value that allows manufacturers to assert that two otherwise identical products can justify different list prices.

I suspect though that this is out of your frame of reference. You operate within the industry and the mindset that anything is being done for negative reasons is simply not tolerated. Even suggesting the possibility is taboo.

I'm not doubting or even questioning your work. What I am saying though is that product improvement is not always the objective.

Edited by r11co on Tuesday 2nd September 14:08

[r11co]

RacerMike said:

r11co. You use the typical approach of anyone who is desperately trying to prove their beliefs with no real evidence.

So says the person who states that their job is to give subjective opinions on something with no real evidence....

I've got to agree though - this thread is becoming political, even down to the standard avoidance tactics.

You replied with a list of nit-picks about what I said, once again ignoring my question about product development which is not always in the interests of the end-user and instead exploits their brand loyalty. Are you denying this has happened? Are you stating that manufacturers never exploit brand loyalty? I presented you with several examples that prove my point, but you just ignore them and repeat that I have no real evidence.

RacerMike said:

AGAINST:You discredit my view point by saying I'm using 'weasily words'.

This is not an argument - you did use weasel words, and my pointing it out does not mitigate that.

Edited by r11co on Tuesday 2nd September 22:11