CHEVROLET will use Twitter and Facebook to promote its new Spark city car to younger car buyers.
The car manufacturer is planning a social media marketing drive as it aims to attract younger buyers to the brand.
The Spark – an urban city car with youthful looks – is key to driving new customers through Chevrolet dealers’ doors.
And vital to that will be the use of social media to push the car in front of those that use these sites.
UK managing director Mark Terry told Car Dealer: ‘We’ll be using social media to get the Spark message to the right people.
‘I don’t understand these methods as well as I should but we’ve got teams working on pushing the Spark out via these new and exciting streams.’
One way the manufacturer will do this is through the Facebook group ‘I own a Matiz and am under 50’ group which currently has 400 members.
NEW BUYERS
Terry sees the Spark – which starred in the Transformers 2 movie – as a car for a relatively affluent, post-graduate buyer. The range starts at £6,945 and features 1.0-litre and 1.2-litre engines with insurance groups as low as one.
‘We’re looking to attract younger buyers, but that doesn’t mean the car won’t appeal to the older generations too,’ said Terry.
‘What we have found is that you can do it that way around but not the other – for example you can’t make a car appeal to the older buyers and expect younger customers to buy it too, but you can the other way.’
Spark will be sold alongside the Matiz for the first quarter of this year and it’s already notched up a number of sales under the scrappage scheme.
Terry hopes between 7-8,000 will find homes in 2010, meaning it’ll play a large part in his forecasts of in the region of 20,000 units for this year.
‘Dealers are very excited about it,’ added Alan Brewer, product manager for Spark. ‘We’re holding a special event for them this week in London which has some exiting things for them to look forward to.’
Car Dealer has been on the launch of the Spark this week and was impressed. For the money it’s a dramatic step on from the Matiz, handles well and is competent around town. A full road test will appear in the next issue of Car Dealer.
by JAMES BAGGOTT
