Premcar turns 30 in 2026. To celebrate, we’re sharing some of our carmaking knowledge. This time, it’s about branding.
Carmaking is easy, right?
Design the car, make the car, market the car, sell the car.
Correct?
Sort of, but not quite.
Car enthusiasts and industry veterans can name plenty of great cars that were sales flops when new.
They can also list the ‘average’ new cars that climbed the sales charts, thanks mostly to ‘great marketing’.
But here’s the thing:
Even the most passionate car fan will admit their favourite car’s greatest attribute isn’t its build quality, performance or style.
It greatest attribute is how it makes them feel.
It’s fair to say most (non-enthusiast) car owners will cite practical factors as the basis for their vehicle choice.
But often the final force behind their buying decision is how a car or brand makes them feel, and that feeling is often assurance.
And that feeling is usually an effect of branding.
Leading UK adman Rory Sutherland sums it up when he calls ‘brands’ psychological signals.
They’re a collection of mental associations that buyers use to perceive value when choosing one product over another.
A brand is effectively the catalyst for very specific feelings.
And how does this relate to carmaking?
It sits at the centre of it.
You can build the best-performing car using the best chassis design with the best powertrain and the best exterior styling, but if it doesn’t reach a level of specific emotional appeal for enough buyers, then it’s simply a vanity project.
That’s why branding in carmaking isn’t about mixing ‘this brand of suspension components’ with ‘this wheel brand’ wearing ‘this tyre brand’ and boosted by ‘this brand of turbocharger’, and so on.
In our world, branding in carmaking is all about creating cars that ultimately send the right emotional signals to the right people.
A lot of this is based on the buyer’s direct experience with the car.
It’s important to go just beyond the product when you’re designing and developing it.
You need to also focus on causing the effects that really matter to buyers.
That’s how the best carmakers succeed.
Bernie Quinn, CEO of Premcar
About Premcar:
Premcar Pty Ltd is a leading Australian vehicle engineering business that specialises in the automotive, defence and aerospace industries. For 30 years, global car-makers have made Premcar their go-to partner for the complete design, engineering and manufacture of niche-model new cars, full-scale new-vehicle development programs, and electric vehicle (EV) conversions and manufacturing. Premcar’s body of work is extensive. It is the name behind more than 200,000 new cars and 55,000 new-vehicle engines. The company has delivered technical advancements and sales success for major car brands from Europe, the USA, Japan, China and Australia. Visit premcar.au.
