Over the past month or so, we’ve been assisting a group of MBA students from George Washington University. They’re putting together an ad campaign for the new Saab 9-3 (incl XWD) to be focused on one particular geographic area. And whilst it’s part of their academic studies, the campaign will be pitched to Saab USA, presumably for use in that area.
So far we’ve helped out with comments here on site, as well surveys being completed and several readers from here participated in a chat session with the students as well.
I’ve just received an email from the team asking for some more assistance. They need to find out a little more about people’s purchasing processes – what other brands you consider, how you research a vehicle, visits to dealerships, etc.
I’ve just taken the latest survey, and I can assure you it takes no longer than 3 or 4 minutes. The first few questions aren’t very well explained, but they’re aimed at looking into what car you’ve got now and what cars you considered prior to buying it (question 1 and 2 for car #1, questions 3 and 4 for car #2 and so on). After that there’s some questions about research methods and that’s about it.
If you provide your name and email address you’ll be in the running for a $50 Amex gift voucher.
If you can help out, I’m sure they’d appreciate it. I look forward to seeing their results some time soon.
Poorly organized and worded survey. Hopefully not indicative of a GWU MBA?!?
I agree, Scott, hence the couple of pointers in the post – SW
They sent me an email earlier today so I knocked it out in no time.
Looks like they are trying to get a better demographic of the ‘Saab’ owner in terms of what other vehicles they own and what other vehicles they considered when buying a Saab.
I always loved statistics class…
Rubbish. That’s the best some potential MBA’s could come up with??! The level’s more like elementary school.
Advice to those students: Learn the phrase, “Do you want fries with that?” You’ll need it.
Cannot really answer those questions. I don’t own/won’t purchase/couldn’t afford even if I wanted to a brand new Saab, so they don’t really apply. >.>;
I chose my 2000 9-5 Aero over a 2000 540i, a 2000 XJR, a 2000 A6 2.7t, and a 2001 S60 T5, they were all used but I still chose the Saab over some pretty tough competition.
I’m normally against the idea of buying a brand new car, just because the whole depreciation thing doesn’t make alot of sense. Better to buy something a year old with ~10k miles on the clock for 20-30% less. Depending on whether I go straight to grad school or not, my next car could likely be a new car or at most a year old. Right now the car that catches my attention the most is the 135i, even though it’s coming in at $4k more than it was supposed to.
Right now I can’t really think of much that could compete, but if Saab can get the MSRP of a 9-3 Aero XWD with the eLSD down to ~$35k US, then they’d have a definite Saab sale on their hands.
Oh, and in case they check here, I choose my cars based off reviews I read in magazines like car and driver, but I also visit the dealership to sit in the cars and get an idea of how well-built they are.
The ads that I pay attention to the most are well-made ads in magazines, ads that are pitched to someone educated and discriminating and are worded appropriately for someone like that.
On those grounds I think that the “born from jets” campaign totally fails, those ads tell me nothing about what makes Saabs truly different from the competition and worth buying, and the ads read like they were pitched to someone with a high-school education at best. The people who will buy new Saabs don’t care that they were born from “jets” (even that sounds stupid, it just seems like really awkward grammar), they care about good cars. If anything, I’d expect that the juvenile “born from jets” campaign actually turns off the highly educated, high-income professionals who traditionally made up the bulk of the new Saab market.
I’m afraid I’ll have to agree with some of the other comments here. Asking the same question 2 or 3 times – without rephrasing, so without obvious reasons – is perhaps too subtle even for this guy. If this is MBA, then I don’t want mine anymore.
What don’t you get about the multiple questions?? They were gathering comparison data for your first car, then for the second car because that would be different competitors, then the third. It makes perfect sense.
And while I’m disappointed that there wasn’t more depth, I’ll be very interested to see the results. Often on this site we discuss who Saab’s real competitors are, and I’ll be interested to see if the real competition is BMW, Audi, Infiniti or Subaru, Volvo, Acura.