Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, June 21, 1994 TAG: 9406240026
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: C8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: DETROIT LENGTH: Long
Debbie Manowski, of Juneau, Alaska, said she would attend ``a family get-together.''
In fact, she will be joining a celebration with some 25,000 strangers, including Bierman.
What all these people have in common is that they share one consumer decision - buying a Saturn, a sturdy but otherwise rather unremarkable little automobile built at the Spring Hill factory.
It is without exaggeration that many Saturn owners call themselves groupies, fanatics, even members of a cult. That zealousness has been skillfully cultivated by Saturn, a subsidiary of General Motors Corp. and perhaps the nation's most fervent practitioner of ``relationship marketing.''
While other auto companies and their dealers traditionally forget about their customers as soon as they drive away in new cars, Saturn has made bonding with buyers for life its key marketing aim, one that competitors are struggling to imitate.
``They treat the customer like a friend, they treat the customer intelligently,'' said David Aakers, professor of marketing strategy at the University of California at Berkeley. ``That was a real breakthrough in the auto industry - which is bizarre.''
The Spring Hill ``homecoming,'' a hoedown Friday and Saturday, may be Saturn's most audacious gambit yet to cement the fevered loyalty of its customers. Thousands of the devoted responded to invitations sent by the automaker and plan to head to Tennessee to tour the Saturn plant, eat hot dogs and ``southern Chinese eggrolls,'' and line dance or boogie in a hayfield to country music and rhythm and blues.
Saturn says as many as 100,000 other owners and their families will gather at dealerships nationwide to show solidarity with those on the pilgrimage.
The homecoming arrives at a critical time for Saturn, as it competes for scarce resources within GM to add production space to build more cars.
After losing money for years, Saturn, which cost GM an estimated $5 billion to start, barely turned a profit last year, and has not been able to sell enough coupes, sedans and station wagons to keep its 322,000-vehicle-per-year factory operating at capacity.
Many auto industry analysts say the design has grown stale and that Saturn has fallen behind its rivals in providing basic equipment, such as passenger-side airbags.
The homecoming may help Saturn's cause by reminding GM executives of the little company's more impressive side, its success at attracting a type of buyer new to GM: relatively young, wealthy, educated and extremely enthusiastic. According to Saturn's research, 80 percent of the more than 600,000 Saturn owners intend to buy another Saturn.
``We've created this bond, this almost cult-like following,'' said Donald Hudler, Saturn's vice president for sales, service and marketing.
To explain their passion, Saturn owners cite their relationship with their dealers, which they seem to prize more than the car itself. With a no-haggle pricing policy and salaried salespeople, Saturn dealerships put less pressure on customers - though one of Saturn's most embarrassing rituals is that salespeople insist on gathering and chanting to celebrate the sale as owners drive off in their new cars.
Saturn's advertising and marketing reinforces that bond by focusing not just on the product and its features - as other automakers tend to do - but also on the people who make and sell it, and the place from where it originates.
The emphasis on Spring Hill has also contributed to what Aakers called Saturn's ``subtle flag-waving - no `heartbeat of America' stuff.'' Indeed, many Saturn owners say they bought the car partly because it is American-made.
To be sure, not all Saturn owners are happy. Even devoted fans gripe about the cars, as the constant flow of complaints among some 600 owners on the Internet computer network attests.
``I don't know if my squeaking is the same as your grinding or not, but I'll tell you what my service guy says ...'' one owner recently wrote another, who had groused about his Saturn's talkative brakes.
Russ Brown, 25, of Santa Clarita, Calif., is among the many Saturn owners who have no plans to join the festivities at Spring Hill. ``They're making a big deal of homecoming or whatever, but I think it's a hoax,'' he said.
Brown has repeatedly complained that his 1993 sedan makes a grinding noise when it downshifts from third to second gear, but his dealer, while acknowledging the problem, has been unable to fix it. ``I feel that they're as average or below the average of other car companies,'' he said.
Saturn officials says they are prepared to receive up to 50,000 guests in Spring Hill. Saturn workers are setting up 214 tents with 135,000 square feet of space to fend off rain or the Tennessee sun.
While the company would not disclose the cost of the event, it said it would come out of its advertising budget, with no effect on its overall bottom line. To help defray costs, Saturn is charging adults $34 to attend, and children $17. That fee entitles the Saturn owners to visit the nearby Opryland amusement park for either day of the homecoming.
Most of the 24,000 hotel rooms in the Nashville area are booked for the event, said Terry Clements, director of visitor development for the Nashville Convention and Visitors Bureau. Clements said his office expected visitors to spend more than $2 million a day in the area, and local business people hope for a bonanza.
/
/
/
/
/
/
by CNB