irishcar.com

28 December 2001 7pm: The marketing thrust for the new Fiat Stilo is going to be one of the most aggressive ever run in this country for a small family segment car, according to Paulo Gagliardo, CEO of Fiat Auto Ireland.

It will include providing up to 10 demonstrator cars at each Fiat dealership here, as well as registering a fleet of top-spec Stilos to bring around the key fleet buyers, including the hire-drive operators.

“We intend to get people into the cars, to show them just how content-rich the Stilo is,” says Gagliardo, who only took up his position in Ireland earlier this year, having been headhunted previously to Fiat from being Marketing Manager for Ford Italy and earlier as Brand Manager for Ford Mustang in Dearborn, Michigan.

The content of Stilo is seen by the young Sicilian as a key part of the strategy to make Fiat a real contender in the ‘C’ segment. And he intends to be controversial and direct as a challenger.

“If people want to buy a Corolla or a Focus or whatever else in the segment, that’s fine,” he told irishcar.com this afternoon. “But I’m telling them to make sure that they get six airbags, airconditioning, traction control, and electric windows as are standard from the entry level Stilo - along with much more.”

The bald inference is that when the putative buyers of those key competing brands see how much extra they’re going to have to pay for what’s standard on the Fiat, they’ll figure that they’re being shortchanged.

A number of other innovations are in the pipeline for Irish customers of Stilo, including a video cassette which will give them a chance - in their own private and leisure time - to take a ‘tour’ through the car.

“When someone takes delivery of a new car, they just want to get into it and drive it,” says Gagliardo. “There isn’t the time for the dealer to show them everything, and the handbook for the Stilo is like that ...” - he opens finger and thumb to the width of a Turin phone book - “... so the video will both give them a pleasant and visual introduction to the car, and, hopefully, they will pass it on to a friend who asks about their new car.”

That’s important for Fiat with this new venture. It will succeed in making significant inroads into the established competition only if a critical mass of owners express the fact that they’re proud of their cars.

As an expression of their own faith in the Stilo, all Fiat’s management in Ireland will be driving the car as their company vehicles for the foreseeable future.

Another part of a marketing strategy for what is, realistically, a make-or-break model for Fiat if it ever wants to be a brand of other than small cars. BB