Apollo – Rebranding “Have a safe trip” 2012

Apollo tyres is a company from India that recently bought the Dutch tyre manufacturer Vredestein. Apollo/Vredestein only has sales in the replacement market. Apollo is a midrange price fighter, products are value for money; a decent product for a low price. The Indian management has little knowledge on how to approach the European market. It is Apollo’s ambition to increase sales in Europe, with a specific focus on GE, UK, IT, NL, DK, AUT and CH. There was a specific request from the client to increase brand awareness, to lose the Apollo Indian image and build on an European brand. Mills had been asked to pose a European champagne, I was given the task to make an analysis of the current brand, propose a new direction and develop a new concept strategy.

Approach:

In order to determine Apollo brand positioning I conducted in depth market study. For this I analysed purchase behaviour and decision making in the various target groups (singles / young couples / families with young children / empty nests / seniors). Conclusions are: information is mainly gathered via Internet comparison (either mobile or desktop), male in role of opinion leader makes purchase decision. The role of point of sale influencing is very limited.

Overall there is low brand awareness for Apollo and communication is mainly targeted at singles via magazines (sex sells). From my analysis this has proven to be ineffective because this targeted audience is mainly influenced by test reports and reputation. My research showed that due to the brand image and product proposition a better match is found with young couples and families with young children. This was confirmed with interviews I conducted on garage keepers and sales men.

Result:

We developed the following concept: Simplify the brand to 1 word. The choice was made to focus on safety (affordable). Based on the target audience research the tone of voice was as if to talk to family or friends. We created a campaign concept based on the tagline “whatever the destination, have a safe trip with Apollo tyres.”

The visuals move away from the original “sex sells” advertising to a more friendly, functional and appealing message.

This concept has been presented to Apollo/Vredestein management (EU and Global)