Smelly Volvo Families, Part 2

On September 17, 2007, in Smelly Volvo Families, TAC predicted,

"Volvo is making a classic marketing mistake. They are trying to be someone else.

Instead of positioning themselves as a new, safer, more stylish Volvo they are aiming to be the second best BMW. I'm sure there's some marketing genius/account planner telling them that safety isn't enough and they have to make an "emotional bond" with consumers. In fact, safety is an emotional bond to their customer base and TAC predicts that they will learn this the hard way. They have relinquished their unique reason for being."

On December 24th, Autoblog reported

"Things at Volvo haven't been going well... Anne Belec, CEO of Volvo's North American sales operations, expects another serious decline...The first move will be to pair down Volvo's Stateside dealer network in an effort to match demand with the sales infrastructure.

"...the one thing that seems to be plaguing Volvo is a lack of brand identity. The Automotive News interview with Belec categorizes Volvo as a "luxury brand," something that Ford has been trying to hype in recent years. "Luxury" is a far cry from Volvo's original identity of manufacturing the world's safest vehicles, and with far more competitive offerings coming from Audi, BMW, Lexus and Mercedes-Benz, it's no wonder the Volvo is floundering considering its lack of focus on what it does best."

On January 9th, 2008, Autoblog reported

"Volvo has been trying its darnedest to reinvent itself, but the Swedish automaker is finding it can't escape its own image."

Whodathunkit?

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