Marketing spends for WR-V are higher than Honda City: Jnaneswar Sen

Last week, Honda Cars India unveiled its latest sub-compact SUV – the Honda WR-V pegging it against Maruti Suzuki Vitara Brezza and Ford EcoSport. While the pre-launch period witnessed 1,000 bookings, it garnered another 400-500 bookings post the official launch. Jnaneswar Sen, senior vice president – marketing, Honda Cars India, in conversation with Collin Furtado talks about the WR-V positioning, marketing campaign and ad spends.

What is the target audience for this car?

We designed the entire package young trendsetters, understood their needs both practical and emotive. The car basically aims to fulfill these needs.

Tell us about the marketing plan?

The audience we are trying to impress is on the road for fairly long time every day. So we have adopted a 360-degree campaign. The basic tone is youthful and perky and, we have tried to break the clutter. We have also put together a comprehensive digital marketing strategy.

Any numbers you can share on ad spends?

We do not give out specifics but I can say that we are spending a fairly good amount of money to create awareness and impact and are positioning WR-V clearly in people's mind. In fact, the allocation is more than what we are spending on the new Honda City.

Can the WR-V help Honda find success in the SUV segment?

We would like to call this car as a sporty lifestyle vehicle. So we did not constrain ourselves with traditional body shapes. The car is designed around its target customer. Since we did not constrain ourselves, we can get a wide variety of customers for the WR-V. In the SUV range, we have had the CR-V for a long time and it is has been very successful over the years. The BR-V again is not a traditional SUV but a highly versatile car. It's a sporty lifestyle vehicle and we are confident it will do well.

Any experiential advertising plans?

From a consumer's point of view, experience is all that matters and we try deliver the same with our product and dealerships. While it is not exactly experiential marketing, the overall experience offered in a strong marketing tool is itself giving us a huge word of mouth. We were No.1 player in last year's JD Power customer satisfaction index and that further substantiates our approach in this area.

With Tata Motors-Volkswagen alliance to jointly produce cars, does it make sense for automobile companies such as Honda to tie-up to take on the leaders?

No strategy is good or bad really, it is the outcome which matters. We cannot comment on the strategy adopted by others. As far as Honda is concerned, we have no such plans so far.