Citroân UK starts brand-building drive

Citroân UK is overhauling its advertising in an effort to sharpen its identity.

The manufacturer has developed a three-year programme designed to build its brand awareness in a market spending £450m per year on advertising. The new marque building ad campaign features five executions concentrating on the ZX and Xantia models but will be extended across the full range over the next three years.

Last year Citroân spent £33m (Register MEAL) on advertising. Annual spend will not increase but will be reallocated – £45m will be spent over the next three years (£15m per year) on the new marque-building campaign to run in parallel with model specific promotional campaigns.

Citroân’s UK market share has grown 1.6 per cent in the past five years to 4.4 per cent. But the French firm has set an internal target of six per cent share within three years.

In an increasingly competitive market, many car manufacturers are having to spend millions just to hold on to their market share.

“One of Citroân’s long-term objectives is to make the marque more important,” says EURO RSCG Wnek Gosper executive director Paul Uhart. “There is a hard core of Citroân drivers but there are people who are ambivalent to the brand.”