Jeep continues advertising push as fortunes start turning

Jeep Australia will continue its advertising-led push to win back customer trust, as its sales show signs of recovery.

Recently-appointed managing director Kevin Flynn earlier this year told CarExpertabout his plan to revive Jeep sales to their “rightful position” in Australia, after a tough 2019.

“I put a four-year projection out on where we can go with volume,” Kevin Flynn last week told CarExpert.

“I think the biggest growth is not going to come from new models, I think the biggest growth is going to come from us taking our rightful position from the point of [market] share,” he later added.

The brand enjoyed a meteoric rise in the early 2010s, peaking with 30,408 sales in 2014. Since then, it’s been all downhill. In 2019, the brand sold just 5519 cars in Australia – down from 7326 in 2018, 8270 in 2017, and 12,620 in 2016.

Its market share last year was just 0.5 per cent, despite having one of the best-known brand names in the world and a range made up exclusively of SUVs.

Stage one in the recovery plan involved improving its service and dealer experience, something Flynn says is well underway.

“Despite COVID and all of us in our lockdowns, we have not missed one commitment,” he said. “Everything we set out to do, we have absolutely delivered on.”

To tell customers about what’s going on behind the scenes, Jeep has dusted off one of its best-known advertising campaigns in Australia and given it a reboot.

It will be joined by four new advertisements, as the brand attempts to put the recently-updated Compass, the new Gladiator ute, the Wrangler and the Grand Cherokee on the map in one of Australia.

Already there are signs of recovery, although it’s tough to ascertain patterns from the rollercoaster that has been 2020.

It grew 7.1 per cent in June compared to the same month in 2019 despite a wider market decline of 6.4 per cent, and last month increased sales by 19.5 per cent to 509, albeit off a relatively low base.

Mr Flynn is happy with the recovery so far, arguing a “managed progression” is the goal instead of stratospheric growth.

“It’s not one of those things [volume] I want to see rocket,” Mr Flynn said.

“I want to make sure we deliver. I don’t want to get into a situation where the planning of the company is out of kilter with where we’re going.”