July 2, 2014: Vespa the iconic brand from Piaggio which means wasp in Italian has been an iconic scooter brand since decades. Recently they had launched an important campaign capturing all about the Vespa consumer and his mindset. Vespa was relaunched in Indian in 2012 and since then has been working hard to make its presence felt in the Indian market. Positioned as a premium scooter, it is priced 40-45% more than an average scooter and the company has tried to position it not on its power but on its coolness.
The new campaign from Vespa built around a montage ‘Do you Vespa?’ has already started catching the eyes of the people. There are more ‘Do You’ montages which have been included the current campaign. The other montages include, ‘Do You Tick Tock’, ‘Do You Fantasy’, ‘Do You Against’ and ‘Do You Me’. According to Krishna MV, AVP – Marketing, Piaggio (Vespa), “The current campaign is all about the Vespa consumer and his mindset. It cuts across boundaries and countries and is as relevant to India as to Vietnam or Italy.”
The present campaign focuses on making the Vespa brand contemporary so as to appeal to the new generation. This appeal is being generated by using the grammar ‘Do You Vespa?’ an important aspect of this campaign is that it is being run as a global campaign and a global positioning is being created through ‘Do You Vespa?’ Davide Zanolini, Global Marketing Head, Piaggio was quoted as saying about the new campaign “Vespa is a brand with a relevant past behind but with an even more important future beyond and to project it into the future, we must keep innovating, in terms of products, quality, technology and communication.”
The new campaign takes forward from where the earlier campaign was left. The earlier campaign used Vespa’s fashion legacy lingo and the present campaign takes it forward and tries to express one’s individuality. It tries to give the brand a new ideology. Though there are market experts who believe that Vespa is setting out to create an image that people do not have permanent relationships with their two wheelers and is trying to build up on the cool quotient but there are some who believe that the present campaign tries to make the brand larger than life. Some feel that some of the questions that are asked are forceful and some are forced and this is the strength and the weakness of the campaign.
The biggest challenge for the brand is its premium positioning and since the sales figures are just about 1 per cent of the 3 million scooter market, it would be difficult to garner a bigger market share in a short period of time. It remains to be seen how much of this campaign really works in favour Vespa especially when the brand is projected as a premium brand and has just about 2500 units per month being sold in the Indian market. Another challenge is how many young consumers connect to the brand and connect to the new ad which is in a question format. How many will say ‘I do’ or relate to the montages that are asked and how many of this translate into footfalls and ultimately into sales is the real challenge which Vespa as a brand will have to face in the coming days.
[youtube height=”HEIGHT” width=”WIDTH”]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY79tSAx5VU[/youtube]
[youtube height=”HEIGHT” width=”WIDTH”]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvrbgmMoJZg[/youtube]
[youtube height=”HEIGHT” width=”WIDTH”]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kwi3somblc[/youtube]
[youtube height=”HEIGHT” width=”WIDTH”]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oj_l4eDaB4k[/youtube]
