Mazda's CMO Resigns

[Arcticshade]

You know the guy who lead the "Feel Alive" campaign? Yeah, he left...

Mazda Begins Search for New CMO | Orange County Business Journal

Dino Bernacchi to part ways with automaker this month

www.ocbj.com

Hopefully Mazda will now get some better advertisement / commercials.

 

[sm1ke]

Man I hope they hire someone who knows what they're doing..

 

[Avoidin Deer]

This may be part of their refresh on the customer experience here.

But I'm not certain Mazda's "non-traditional" approach to the market falls on the shoulders of one person. The guy's only been there since 2017.

I'm 65 and hardly recall many Mazda commercials like their competitors air that would get me in their showrooms. "The Mazda goes Hmmmmm" and a little boy whispering "Zoom Zoom" are memorable, but there was nothing urgent like "Come in now for Mazda blowout days!!!"

It's all concept, and no followup sell. Not even an invitation to "Visit your local Mazda dealer today" at the end of the commercial.

Always been that way. It's the culture.

 

[Antoine]

Perhaps Mazda should take a page from Toyota's book and offer special showrooms or brand experiences like Toyota does for its "Gazoo Racing" arm...Check out this place they have in Japan...

I realize Toyota has a lot more resources but I appreciate the effort they're putting into motorsports and into developing exciting production vehicles.

The key is tying everything together to bolster the brand and make it more popular and desirable...Having a performance arm like Gazoo Racing, TRD, AMG (Benz) etc is not only great for enthusiasts, it's a great way to increase margins and make more money! Mazda could do the same! Give us factory tuned high performance / high-spec variants (for a slight premium) AND get increased revenue (allowing for even more exciting product development)...Isn't that a Win Win!?

Mazda can grow marketshare and cater to enthusiasts at the same time...Right?!

 

[Avoidin Deer]

Mazda is upgrading to "Mazda Evolution" showrooms. I was just at my dealership, and the sales guy showed me the architectural drawing of it...a two story all glass building. Supposed to be done in 2 years.

The interesting thing at this location (Flow Mazda in Charlottesville, VA) is that the owners hold local dealerships for Mazda, Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche. They are gong to consolidate these dealerships into one location (something like a small strip mall), with the Mazda Evolution building being the anchor. The rest of the buildings are nondescript smaller white brick. Anyone going there to purchase any of those brands will be drawn to the Mazda building. And customers for each specific brand can walk to each adjacent building to check out the other brands. This can only accrue to Mazda's benefit.

In North Carolina, Flow also has dealerships for Buick, GMC, Nissan, Mini, Acura, BMW, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Honda, Lotus, MV1, Subaru, Jaguar, and Land Rover in 7 towns/cities. They sell Mazdas in 2 of those towns. If this format is repeated there, it should also help to expose more folks to the brand.

Also makes me wonder if these modern showrooms might provide a foundation for your idea, Antoine. But there are just so many challenges when you're the size that Mazda is. So tough to justify boutique showrooms. It would be interesting to see regional sales broken down by model. There may be a couple of locations where this could be justified. Members on the CX-5 forum speak of having 6 Mazda dealerships within easy driving distance (somewhere in Ohio.) I have one dealership 20 miles away, another one 40 miles away, and the next closest is 90 miles away.

 

[pfgrenier]

My dealer has been remodeled: https://www.floodmazda.com

 

[Avoidin Deer]

My dealer has been remodeled: https://www.floodmazda.com

Nice!

That's pretty much what the architectural drawing at my dealer looked like, as I recall.

I wonder if this is a standard design.

 

[sm1ke]

My dealer has been remodeled: https://www.floodmazda.com

That definitely looks much more upscale. I'm a fan!

 

[pfgrenier]

That definitely looks much more upscale. I'm a fan!

I hadn't been there in a couple of years and was pleasantly surprised by the remodel. I was dropping off after hours for service and was looking from the outside, pretty dramatic with the huge screen and the vehicle on the hoist.

 

[Antoine]

My dealer has been remodeled: https://www.floodmazda.com

Nice! That reminded me that some Mazda Dealerships in Japan have been completely rebuilt from the ground up and are "night and day" compared to the dealership they replaced...In other words, so much nicer and a lot more upscale...You can see a bit of one from the CX-30 pics I took recently...

 

[Antoine]

Mazda is upgrading to "Mazda Evolution" showrooms. I was just at my dealership, and the sales guy showed me the architectural drawing of it...a two story all glass building. Supposed to be done in 2 years.

The interesting thing at this location (Flow Mazda in Charlottesville, VA) is that the owners hold local dealerships for Mazda, Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche. They are gong to consolidate these dealerships into one location (something like a small strip mall), with the Mazda Evolution building being the anchor. The rest of the buildings are nondescript smaller white brick. Anyone going there to purchase any of those brands will be drawn to the Mazda building. And customers for each specific brand can walk to each adjacent building to check out the other brands. This can only accrue to Mazda's benefit.

In North Carolina, Flow also has dealerships for Buick, GMC, Nissan, Mini, Acura, BMW, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Honda, Lotus, MV1, Subaru, Jaguar, and Land Rover in 7 towns/cities. They sell Mazdas in 2 of those towns. If this format is repeated there, it should also help to expose more folks to the brand.

Also makes me wonder if these modern showrooms might provide a foundation for your idea, Antoine. But there are just so many challenges when you're the size that Mazda is. So tough to justify boutique showrooms. It would be interesting to see regional sales broken down by model. There may be a couple of locations where this could be justified. Members on the CX-5 forum speak of having 6 Mazda dealerships within easy driving distance (somewhere in Ohio.) I have one dealership 20 miles away, another one 40 miles away, and the next closest is 90 miles away.

Excellent points, @Avoidin Deer Seems like Mazda is slowly moving in that direction, it's great to know that they have been updating Dealerships in the U.S. Yeah having a "Brand Boutique" like Toyota would not to be something for every town, it would be for very select locations to maximize "ROI". MAZDASPEED used to be a model variant but as we know, it no longer is (unless I'm mistaken)...I think Mazda could really benefit from more Motorsports activity as well as including their Motorsport efforts into their marketing and models. Maybe they're already planning this but it takes time, not sure...Mazda is doing a great job going more upscale overall but I think they also need to bolster this effort with more Motorsport and performance related products and messaging...The German automakers seems to do this quite well...Offer premium vehicles as well as high performance / spec variants.

It seems Toyota's take on this with its GR brand is to offer sportier higher performance versions of their standard models from mild to wild (aka GR Yaris). Mazda could start by offering slightly sportier / higher spec variants along with more aggressive variants if the market can support it...Combine that with more Motorsports and Motorsports-related marketing...Making Mazda more of an aspirational brand...Loving the current Premium push but let's see a Performance push as well...Across the entire model lineup!