Medial spoiled.

I had a nightmare. I dreamed that NEVS would start production in Trollhättan during the IAA. The time when the entire automotive cosmos expands in the Main metropolis. I talked to my wife about it. She calmed me down and said - with a worried look - that would surely not happen. I talked to friends about it, and they also considered it impossible to start the tapes at this time.

SAAB Numer 1 from NEVS
SAAB Numer 1 from NEVS

Despite all attempts at calming down, the rumor mill began to simmer in Trollhättan in the following days. The IAA started and the rumors grew louder. Like a storm front that inexorably moves closer and closer. Then came September 18, 2013. Friends from Sweden had predicted the start of the “Preproduction Phase” for this day. The morning began threateningly. In TTELA, at Dagens Industri, the Göteborger Presse and in Svenska Dagbaldet, NEVS announced that the facelift for the 9-3 was on the dry side. Which is not really a message of substance. Because the new variant has been ready for months. But that's a different story.

So the chances that nobody would flip the switch in the factory that day fell, and so did my hope that this event would be postponed to a more media-friendly date.

Bloggers nightmare becomes reality

Shortly after 13.00 clock it was time! My personal nightmare became reality. The first pictures appeared on Saabsuntited. A silver 9-3 Griffin, an almost deserted hall. Somehow unreal.

As a local audience: Fredrik Sidahl, representing the supply industry, a Secretary of State, some regional politicians, bloggers from Saabsunited and a few NEVS staff. No representative of local press, no motor journalist, no national newspaper. OK. While NEVS-Saab number 1 saw the light of day and remained strangely lonely, the serial production of the BMW i3 began in Leipzig. And while my mailbox was pleased about a press release from Munich, no mail came from Sweden. The puzzle solution is simple. Because not only my mailbox remained empty. In Sweden, the distribution portal had been changed in the meantime and the existing address lists were not or only partially accepted. The result was clear! While the leaflets filled news reports from Leipzig, no Swedish newspaper reported anything about the first Saab of the new era. Not even to neighboring Gothenburg, it grabbed the message. It did not help me to desperately press the refresh button. Empty remains empty!

Even the local newspaper Trollhättans had no photographer on site at the event. The reporting was limited to a few, thin lines. The pictures came from Saabsunited. After a short time, the headline was changed, NEVS moved to the second row, and it was better to report on dismembered body parts that had been found at Strömstad. Crime throws a new start, actually impossible, because normally the TTELA would have been worth a big “EXTRA-EXTRA-EXTRA” headline.

The performance of NEVS - incredible

Well, okay, of course I am happy about every little progress that has been made with our brand. NEVS 'performance is great, that's what it's all about. Less about the car that was built on Wednesday. The achievement of bringing a car factory out of its deep sleep is extraordinary. The effort to fill this plant with life, to put the paint shop and assembly into operation after such a long downtime. Something like this doesn't happen every day, and many a motoring journalist would have been happy to make a great story out of it.

What annoys me, quite frankly, are wasted opportunities and the media deficits. Small companies have to drum louder and move faster than the big ones to sell their products. And NEVS-Saab is currently very, very small. The company moves below the public perception limit. The time until vehicles are in the showrooms will be a long time coming, the dry spell has not yet been overcome.

Apparently one has a different perception of things in Sweden than here in Germany. Anyone who visited the IAA in the last few days could experience how intensely every manufacturer fights for every customer in the flow of visitors. How NEVS wants to survive by remaining invisible is questionable.

Why you don't use every opportunity in Trollhättan to sell a positive thing accordingly ... it remains a mystery to me. Maybe you are unconsciously continuing a Saab tradition. In Trollhättan they always built good cars and had innovative solutions. Only too little was said about it.

Well, the story of filling a resting work with life is something very special, a unique process ... that could have been staged accordingly. There would have been more for NEVS and for the Saab brand. Maybe a week later. After a relatively boring IAA. With an international press. Saab would have been on everyone's lips with a great story. Positive.

On the following Wednesday, BMW's production start-up could be found in every small German provincial newspaper. You could read about it in Sweden too. A few papers with dry three-lined lines reported about NEVS in their home country. The Autobild launched a listless article in Germany in which the word broke appeared what felt like a dozen times, and the Handelsblatt wrote something about old boxes.

Autohaus Online only brought the first good article to the start of preproduction in the late afternoon, and a little later, the online car shop followed. And suddenly good press photos made the rounds on the net. So it works, it just takes a little time. But it has to get much, much better very soon if you want a chance.

The day before yesterday, visiting with friends at the IAA, we stopped at the inevitable currywurst stand. My friend Marco was wearing our team jacket with Saab lettering. A kakofone sloshed from the next table "they are broke”Over to us. Such is the situation in real life!

Good press is needed! Medially messed up! Please touch up. Point.

36 Comments
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beff
beff
10 years earlier
Helmut
Helmut
10 years earlier

Find the approach of NEVS perfectly fine. As long as there is no complete clarity regarding a consistent structure of subcontracting, production, sales, marketing, etc., one should be cautious.

Ded2
Ded2
10 years earlier

My first thought about the report was similar, why do you report it now and then in such a form. But if I think about it more carefully and read the message - as far as my modest knowledge of Swedish allows - I can understand that NEVS did not choose the big program.
What happened to him A first run with the first pre-production model was no longer successfully completed on the belts. As far as I understand, some of the production was made with “old” parts. It was also read that the interior was not yet up to date. If I then imagine the German motor press here, I can already imagine the tear in pictures. The fact is, the factory is ready to go, nothing more. That's why I find the NEVS approach understandable. Especially since we saw we mostly did not understand NEVS in the past year, and in retrospect the NEVS procedure made sense.

I'm also impatient, until finally more news come but I think more to announce it was simply not, but somehow wanted to put a sign of life. But I am afraid that there are still some difficulties with suppliers who are in the final vote. Only when this is clear can you really kick in front of the press.

Greeting Ded

F-RU XXXX
F-RU XXXX
10 years earlier

Interesting meeting!

-18.09.2013. 12.00h
Photos downloaded from the blog report, linked Saabunited.
a little with contrast and Lilcht helped and on glossy A-4
printed. 10 piece. Tailored really nice.
By noon I was just at a red light in my fresh
polished, black Tala .. 902 on.
-Eben rolls a blue-silver police Opelvan. Look to the left, through
open window, a smiling friend + helper looks up to me, thumbs up,
and means “a really nice car”.
-Yes, oh, thank you very much, I said, soon he's coming of age, but it's music to drive him.
-Polizist nods, saying, pity about the beautiful cars, too bad that the work
had to close!
-But until today! The “no. one ”came off the line, especially today.
-The cop "Are you kidding"?
-A grab to the passenger seat, took a glossy photo and reached the
Hand over, he took the sheet of paper, looked and said “what a snout ...”
-First horn from the back
- Still a smile and a wink, we drove off, he left, I just
.
It's not exactly the topic, but it warms your heart
90 second meeting at the Frankfurt traffic light, was somehow happy all day.
If everything is hoped for, tolerated, written truths, then not only
a game.

Many optimistic greetings to all from Frankfurt.

Ulrich
Ulrich
10 years earlier

Hallo,
Tom's report: A precision landing. Hopefully it will also be read in Trollhättan.

Regards

Ulrich

TT
TT
10 years earlier
Reply to  Ulrich

Interesting question, whether this blog in Trollhättan or even better read by NEVS responsible. Is that so ? Tom, can you understand that?

Wolef
Wolef
10 years earlier
Reply to  Tom

I can not imagine that the blog interested, especially since it is supposedly a car for China! 😛

GP362
GP362
10 years earlier

I see it like Joachim, this is not yet a time for big press. Here the tape was simply tested and no car production started. A lot of nonsense has always been written about SAAB. That would be a great opportunity to revive the rumor of the 2002 model - so keep your feet still, current cars will roll off the assembly line and (engine) secrets will be revealed.
Although many become impatient, for me the quiet work of NEVS makes a better impression than Müller's bubbles.

red99
red99
10 years earlier

If you look at the media services of Nevs since the takeover of the work once with a little distance, there are really only two options:

You can not do it!

or

You do not want it!

The fact that Nevs managed to produce a car in Trollhättan rather speaks for option two. So, Nevs does not want to sell cars in Europe and the US in the foreseeable future. Why should they do professional marketing? If you want to buy a new SAAB, you will need to reimport it from China. SAAB has always been an exclusive pleasure!

BN-FR-1978
BN-FR-1978
10 years earlier

Well bravo, around me the SAAB's are being sold in favor of some boxes from southern Germany and there are readers here who think the soft tones are okay. NEVS should finally give up the defensive so that customers can hear that SAAB is alive. Thanks Tom for the courage to write this article!

Klaus9-5II
Klaus9-5II
10 years earlier

The performance of NEVS is, I think, quite impressive, because filling this recently dead factory with life is certainly not a Sunday walk.
Even if I would like to no longer be asked whether I can still get spare parts for my 3 SAAB and no longer hear the clever experts say “They're broke and“ they're cheap now ”, so everyone Despite prophecies of doom, SAAB is back and everyone knows it, so it's dangerous to go to the start with this great but old car.
How will the press judge without all the little helpers like distance radar, blind spot assistant, 360 degree camera and what I don't know ...
No, at the moment I would rather resurrect so slowly without blowing too much wind, that's right, NEVS.
You can still advertise if it can be delivered.
Nevertheless, great pleasure and congratulations to Sweden! Keep it up!

Greetings!
Klaus

Greif08
Greif08
10 years earlier

I think it's great that something ever happened! Who would have believed it a year ago! If there is not a big press fuss it is just like that, but maybe you should have representatives of the most important countries (Jan Phllip Schumacher ec) to invite to the event together with a very committed German blogger ;-), Keep your own team and the fans on board I would have liked that!

Günther 9-5 II
Günther 9-5 II
10 years earlier

It's true there would have been more music in it. German manufacturers also market every pups, why NEVS not?

matze local
10 years earlier

I do not see it that way, SAAB is doing very well not to put everything on the big bell right now.
If you recall the headlines from 2 weeks ago, then all “dead wood” reports about the SAAB comeback, whether positive, neutral or negative, had one thing in common: namely that the new SAAB was based on the one from 2002 based (in spite of all the facelifts, by the way, I see it similarly, but I think that's anything but bad!). And with that the subliminal message was set: “SAAB is building an old car”. The best proof of this is the report in the MainPost ( http://www.mainpost.de/ueberregional/wirtschaft/wirtschaftdpa/Comeback-nbsp-Erster-Saab-nach-Insolvenz-vom-Fliessband-gerollt;art106,7686865 ). So when MainPost reports on it, then I don't know how much smaller it should go on the “small German provincial newspaper” level: p

SAAB could not do anything worse at the moment than generating too much media attention to end up being unable to meet expectations set by the media.

But I'm also one of those who see events and the behavior of NEVS very positive.
It reminds me a bit of the time when Steve Jobs came back to Apple and I really hope that NEVS does not fall into the model variety megalomania.

But for me it is now exciting in terms of SAAB. There are a few disagreements within the family

Heiko
Heiko
10 years earlier

Whether a product is good or bad does not matter if you market it properly. Proper advertising and marketing is everything. See Dacia.

Frank
Frank
10 years earlier

I also think NEVS got it right. It is certainly about showing the suppliers that the systems (can) run; a kind of vote of confidence ... The timing wasn't that good, but when else? After the IAA? Before Christmas, when everyone is busy with more important things? Or would you prefer to be old on the founding date of SAAB?
I think it's good that there is another ray of hope and I'm looking forward to the e-variant

Joachim
Joachim
10 years earlier

A few readers of this blog have understood that no advertising campaigns should be started with a refreshed 9-3 II (NEVS has acted correctly here, too, in my opinion) - a big trumpet would have immediately evoked a lot of negative reactions!

Time flies by and big promotions should then be implemented in the next year or two with the really new model series (which may then be of interest to broader layers in Europe).

In my opinion, it would also be very important for a second (larger) model series to see the light of day before the actual marketing machine starts up.

Zirkoski
Zirkoski
10 years earlier
Reply to  Joachim

Please be lenient if I strongly contradict. It was not about the car in the article, it was about reviving the performance of NEVS a dead color. I think that's obvious.
This performance should have been marketed better, because more has NEVS not present at the moment also facts. To dream of a larger model series before the first version is fact, on the other hand, is a figment of the imagination. As I said, please be lenient for my clearly worded opinion.

Cetak
Cetak
10 years earlier

Good article,

who speaks from my heart. Because marketing technology, I still see enormous potential for improvement at NEVS.

Just that in the article that appears now there is still talk of the 2002 model ... I'm afraid that will stay that way now, just like the earlier claim that an SAAb would actually be just an Opel ...

While it is true that you can not compare the start of the i3 production with the start of pre-production, but I have to say.

Let's hope that this error at the start of the real production will be eradicated and this time invites the whole press, the Internet consistently uses (Facebook, Twitter and Co send greetings), all the big fan blogs informed etc.pp ..

And, I think it's still a great idea to let the SAAB Performance Team in Trollhättan open, which shows perfectly what a SAAB can do.

Not to mention all the other things (advertising on the internet, funny YouTube videos, SAAB competition &&&).

Aero 9-3
Aero 9-3
10 years earlier

We SAAB fans think and tick “western”. If NEVS mainly wants to supply the Chinese market, looking at Europe, from their point of view, may not make much sense. It may be a positive message when the tapes in Trollhättan are “dusted off” and the 1st NEVS-SAAB rolls forward. Perhaps the marketing abstinence for Europe shows the brand's true path: towards the East. And there the products are brought to the man / woman by friendly cadres. The SAAB product certainly has a positive sound in China ...
Your report, Tom, is well written “from the soul”. In order to survive in Europe, other advertising standards must be adhered to, or highlights must be produced. There is still room for improvement in the offices in Trollhättan! Nevertheless: the first (small) step has been taken!

Tampere
Tampere
10 years earlier

NEVS will probably have to learn to market better, that's the point. Otherwise that will not work. Very well written!

Mike3k
Mike3k
10 years earlier

That's exactly what it looks like! And it only takes 1-2 people who are “knowledgeable” to clock and spread something. Since many press organs only take over texts anyway, information can also be spread well pre-chewed. Since the nonsense with the 2002 model etc. would not have been spread at all.

Unfortunately, I can only shake my head at so much inability ...; (

10 years earlier

Dear Tom,

I see it a little more differentiated: I think using preproduction for a large media run is at least daring. In public it comes across as if an old car without any recognizable further development was simply screwed together again (acuh if it is more than that!). That is not a message in itself and if so, then not a positive one! Getting the work up and running again at all is an extraordinary achievement, but one that interests neither the FAZ, BILD nor AMS or their readers. A fascinating story, but who wants to read it? It gets interesting when a “real” car is built, so there is a novelty effect inside and out.

And with all the love for our brand: To compare the start of preproduction (pre!) With the start of the i3 is a bit megalomaniac. One of the 3 largest car manufacturers started to make cars electric, he was the first to do so consistently in the public perception, BMW started to change the car world. And you mean, a pre-production car from a small manufacturer in Sweden or China would be worth even a small message under “Miscellaneous”? No, we have to be honest, it's just not newsworthy. It is therefore only logical to let preproduction run under the radar or to involve the network community.

10 years earlier
Reply to  Tom

Hi Tom,

I hope that I didn't step on your tie with the word “megalomaniac” 😉 Wasn't meant to be angry. I just think that we should be realistic, we must not transfer our Saab microcosm to the market. Saab hardly exists for anyone at the moment and that doesn't get any better with a pre-series story.

It is clear that one has to approach the media, even with unusual ideas and also with new media (forms) should play. But again: A pre-production model, in which the future is not apparent, is worth no (good) news. No indication of new exterior, no picture of the new interior, no indication of the engine. What do you want to communicate to the general public? That the factory spit out a first car? Sorry, nobody cares about us except hardcore fans.

But it's true: The event had more of the character of a small animal breeder's anniversary 😉 You can and must make more of it. No broken leg for me, but if there is a “real” new Saab, PR has to be found!

Zsolt
Zsolt
10 years earlier
Reply to 

Absolutely agree, even if this is the first time that I disagree with Tom's opinion. Sorry Tom!

Alex
Alex
10 years earlier
Reply to 

Sorry Per, the first manufacturer was probably Renault who has brought a real E car in mass production and that for 22000 €! :-)
Just for fun….
And I think it's good that NEWS has kept everything a bit flat, because all would have laughed again only SAAB builds an old car again!
Then rather a new one and then you should publish it correctly!

Wolef
Wolef
10 years earlier

Stupid talk about our brand has always been there, because we do not drive any product except the said that are good cars but this reputation they have to work out again! The text is well written!

Hilmar
Hilmar
10 years earlier

“Media-wasted”? – hmm, isn’t that a bit intense? The start of production of an older test car without a sufficient product range would have looked very strange if it had been heavily advertised during the IAA and might have only provoked ridicule. For the majority of our fellow citizens, Saab won't play the role anyway, their brains are too focused on Daimler et al. calibrated ;-). I support the currently. More reserved style from NEVS, the results are still impressive.

SaabRedJ
SaabRedJ
10 years earlier
Reply to  Tom

Tom,
the IAA is long gone. I mean there are 2 press days where everything takes place, the other days are just there for Messe Frankfurt making money with car fans. If you want you can also visit the 2 trade visitor days where the important people meet, but that's all. Latest at the 13. September evening, the IAA was only in conversation when you talked about the IAA 2015.

The important date for the press will be the start of production of the “facelift” 9-3. NEVS has to invite the trade press to this date, I hope they do.

That's just my personal opinion.

Hilmar
Hilmar
10 years earlier
Reply to  Tom

Ok - understand how the article is meant, but for me it is a bit contradictory. The message that Saab will be producing again has arrived. And not during the opening phase of the IAA, but during its course. I think the timing and the amount of information were not badly chosen. And by the way, THN employs professionals, we should support them! 😉

Franken-Troll 9-3
Franken-Troll 9-3
10 years earlier

Very good report, hopefully also read in Sweden. Would be a pity if you do not play all the cards correctly in this great story

saabisti63
saabisti63
10 years earlier

Again a great report Tom, the tension is growing every day. Is there already information about the engines?