Morris Garages to begin their India Chapter in 2019
In an interaction with exchange4media, Adam Sloman, General Manager, Morris Garages, Car Club and Pallavi Singh, Marketing Head, Morris Garages, open up about their journey to start a new chapter in India
Morris Garages' (MG) story began in 1924, in the UK and it included stunning sports cars and cabriolets which were much loved rides for many celebrities, including British Prime Ministers and members of the royal family. These cars were imported to the Indian markets as well.
After all these years, MG Motor India (MGMI), was finally incorporated on February 7, 2017, and will soon begin their India chapter with their first Indian manufactured car in the year 2019.
In an interaction with exchange4media, Adam Sloman, General Manager, Morris Garages, Car Club and Pallavi Singh, Marketing Head India, Morris Garages, opened up about their journey to start a new chapter of MG in India.
Talking about how MG is going to expand in India, Sloman said, “We are going to start fresh with MG India, and will bring our expertise and experiences to the Indian market. We are not just focusing on the new MGs, but also trying to bring the taste of old, classic and vintage MGs. We are going to bring over a whole new experience with the help of MG owners. In the month of March and July, we have our big event MG live, which has been running for the past 70 years in the UK. This brings people together across the country. We are planning to do this with the Indian market as well.”
“We want to make an emotional connect with the customers that bring people together because of a car. The car acts as a catalyst here,” added Sloman.
Discussing the Indian economy and comparing the Indian market from the global market, Singh elaborated, “India is evolving, and of course it is different. I always keep saying what the UK and US were during the '60s and '70s, India is that today. There is so much of disruption, so many players coming in, so many brands coming in; everybody wants to experience something new from a brand point of view. There’s a huge opportunity here and we are coming at the right time and we will be able to bring something different and new. When I say new, I mean it is going to be very innovative from an experience, technology and a customer experience point of view. There’s a lot happening in our country and there is an opportunity for everybody to grow. Brands which are already growing here will grow further and the brands like us, which are coming in now, will also grow.”
India has been welcoming a lot of international brands so far and those brands are progressively doing great. Focusing on how international brands are paving their inroads in the Indian markets, Sloman commented, “A country like India is going to lead where the world goes in next 15-20 years. A country like India is emerging and it’s really exciting to be here and to see things happening. Given our shared heritage between Britain and India, it’s really exciting to see MG being a part of that.”
“A lot of international brands are coming to India, thinking they have a kind of expertise everywhere else except India. India is a very important market for MG and in a lot of ways, MG is going to become global from India. A lot of brands have come and said that we have expanded everywhere, now let’s expand in India. But the in case of MG, it was taken over by SEIC in 2007, so you’ll see their urge to grow,” added Singh.
MG will launch their first manufactured car in 2019 and is yet to go through the roller-coaster ride in the Indian market.
“We’ll launch in 2019. Our intent is to study a market and we are doing a
lot of research. We’ll be meeting MG car owners, getting the car club from the UK and hosting MG live in June. We are doing all this to develop the foundation, look at the experience we can partner with, and most importantly, build a lot of good content. Today from a marketing brand point of view, it’s all about content building and not just about digital and advertising, but for us, it’s about ‘Cigital;’ that is the community and digital. There is so much data on the internet today, but how you synthesize that data and use it in the interest of a consumer is what we are planning to do. From a product bringing you to the brand side, we are going to do a lot of different things. Content, community and creating that differentiation through innovation are going to be the key for us,” said Singh.
Talking about how MG will grow in India and his expectations from the Indian market, Sloman said, “There is massive potential for MG cars to grow in India. We had spent almost 90 years as a club back in the UK, putting together people with different backgrounds and different cars, and I think the same expansion can happen in India. We are planning to create a genre that helps old MG and new MG owners to come together.”
The journey for MG in India is planned and the brand is strategising to mark their presence on various platforms other than digital.
“We are really going to talk to communities through digital, which doesn’t mean that we’ll only be on digital. We will look at the right platforms according to the right time because the consumer today is an omni personality. So we’ll be looking at advertising at the right time and right place. We had already done our print run with TOI and HT, which is on the dealer experience event. We’ll build content that is relevant to us,” said Singh.
Talking about how important is content in building a brand, Singh added, “Everybody talks about building content, but the only difference that every marketer is learning today is that we want to do the content through the real owners and not through the brand. That’s why experience comes into play.”
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