GWM plans to explain role of sub-brands

CONFUSION over the purpose of the four verticals, or sub-brands, of Great Wall Motor Limited (GWM) in Australia is a known problem at the marque’s Australian head office, and plans are on foot to clarify the roles of Cannon, Haval, Ora, and Tank in Australia.

The effort will jointly involve the streamlining of product, as well as presenting advertising and other marketing emphasising the GWM brand over and above the sub-brand.

GWM Australia chief operating officer John Kett was unequivocal that the strategy will not result in the sub-brands being eliminated in favour of only presenting local customers with the head brand.

“The (GWM) corporation has R&D and product verticals around Haval, Ora, Tank and Cannon. For us to collapse all of that would be very, very difficult,” Mr Kett told GoAuto.

“What is ailing GWM is that we are establishing a broad awareness of who we are, but the consumer’s familiarity of us, and therefore preference towards us, is quite low because there is a lot of conflict in terms of what each of those brands stands for.

“(The question is) how we explain it in the marketplace. For us, we have to look at the sub-brand’s role and responsibility.”

In Mr Kett’s view, the role of Tank – which focusses on off-roading vehicles – is the “easiest” to define, while Cannon (with a clear specialisation in utes of various sizes) is also reasonably clear to consumers.

The third sub-brand, Haval, delivers the most volume for GWM in Australia. Its specialisation is road-going SUVs, but there is a view that this is not clear enough locally.

Meanwhile, the fourth vertical, Ora, sells only a single battery EV (BEV) in Australia with little present differentiation.

Audaciously, as GWM juggles its four existing verticals, it is understood to be considering adding Wey, a premium SUV nameplate, to the Australian market in future.

In effect, what Mr Kett plans to do is to bring consumer familiarity of GWM, and the name of each relevant sub-brand, up to a reasonably equivalent level rather than axe one or the other.

Still, GWM will be the senior name.

“To bring the portfolio back under GWM, you start seeing from a badging perspective GWM at the back and Haval (for example) at the front,” said Mr Kett.

"We are starting to find a way that people can see GWM Haval, GWM Tank, GWM Cannon, GWM Ora. In terms of the badging we start to look better-coordinated.

“Then our marketing language – what we need to do is make that clearer so that GWM takes the lead.”

Once that level of familiarity is building, GWM Australia plans to seize on the competitive advantage of its Hi4 plug-in hybrid (PHEV) powertrain family to tie the brands together with Hi4 set to spread from Haval and Cannon to Tank in short order.

“Hi4 is such an important technology for us. We see it as a global advantage,” added Mr Kett.

“We want to start demonstrating that within the characteristics of our product, the nomenclature we use to tie GWM to each of that, there is a DNA – probably equivalent to the way Toyota created their HEV portfolio.

“Suddenly the language ladders back up in terms of the role it plays under GWM. The story becomes a little clearer to those who have little understanding of the fact all our sub-brands are owned by GWM.

“That’s the complexity we are dealing with.”