Britain has wild gardens. America has big screens of Barack Obama talking. Brazil has a big rope climb. The Czech Republic has a swimming pool with a half-car, half-bird thing in it. North Korea has ginseng. Belgium has fries. Argentina has big steaks. Belize has a man with a nice picture book of beautiful views. Italy has queues for its display too long to join. Azerbaijan seemingly has a lot of money. Azerbaijan’s ‘stand neighbour’, the UAE, has even more.
Like all major events, the expo has those other brands we already know running through it too. The big boys like McDonald’s and Coca Cola are there with stands, as is coffee maker Illy, which looks to have stumped up the funds to pay for the stands of all the countries it sources from, making them mere extensions of the company brand.
These types of brands, much like big countries, you know what they stand for already, and no matter what they do and what products they make they have a reputation, good or bad, that’s here to stay. Unlike, say, a start-up company or a smaller country, which have to fight for your attention and have a degree of freedom in how they brand themselves.
Alfa Romeo is a big brand. Not a big or successful company, but a big brand. It, too, is in Milan right now, preparing to relaunch itself as a car maker that, at long last, makes the kind of products you associate with the brand.
Like a McDonald’s or a Coca Cola, you know exactly what Alfa Romeo is all about as a brand. But Alfa has for too long been McDonald’s without a Big Mac or Coca Cola without, erm, Coca Cola.
There seems to be an unending amount of goodwill towards Alfa Romeo as a brand, no matter how good, bad or indifferent the cars it makes have been.
Alfa is now promising rear-wheel-drive cars, powerful engines and beautiful styling for its cars - all things you associate with the brand, but none of which has been too evident in its products in recent years.
Let’s hope that tonight’s much-anticipated relaunch of Alfa Romeo as a company brings with it the kind of products and ultimately business success that Alfa Romeo as a brand surely deserves.
Read more:
The full story on Alfa Romeo's relaunch
Alfa Romeo Giulia - first pictures
Join the debate
Bullfinch
Time flies
Zazu25
Sad but true
Not that I care. I would take an Alfa any day over the boring German manufacturers.
Zazu
Norma Smellons
Zazu25 wrote: I can safely
Why? Have you done a survey? Alfa really are stuffed if that's true.
No, not really. But go on.
I am terribly sorry to hear that. But are you really that surprised?
Bit of a generalisation, that. But let me guess - you do?
You know what, you may have a point there.
You know what, they may have a point there.
Then you truly are a brave individual. Good luck and God bless you.
Norma Smellons
Half an Alfa
supermanuel
"Alfa is now promising rear
Zimmerit
Beautiful it may not be
Overdrive
The Alfa brand
That said, I quite like the look of the new Giulia (a bit derivative though its styling might be) and genuinely hope it's well built and drives well.
But the conundrum Alfa has is that not only will it be going up against the traditional German rivals AND the Jag/Lexus/Infiniti alternatives, but also against the expanding range of its in-house brand, Maserati! So, the new Alfas need to be really on their game to be successful and parent FIAT's strategy well thought out to ensure both brands remain viable.
abkq
It could be brand loyalty
concinnity
Too late to 'make the products live up to the brand' ?
This is a statement that anyone could have made and many repeatedly have made, about the company for the last thirty years.And we're still waiting for products to suit. Maybe the Guilia will be a start.
But I don't think that anyone's holding their breath any more.
There's been too many false dawns.
Again, there's a light in the eastern sky. But is it just the spotlights of hype and publicity, or a new sunrise?
Alfabook
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