Holden targets the Chinese market

Chinese Australians targeted with a 'pilot ethnic marketing' program
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Football, meat pies, kangaroos and yum cha. Holden has embarked on a bold marketing campaign that targets Chinese-born Australians -- offering them an exclusive $550 discount if they buy a car during Chinese New Year celebrations.

But it is not deemed discriminatory against other nationalities because anyone can take part in the offer -- even though the advertisements are only written in Chinese and it is a bigger discount than those offered to other community groups.

"You don't have to be Chinese to take up that offer," the sales and marketing director of Holden, John Elsworth, told the Carsales Network.

"It doesn't preclude [non-Chinese speakers]."

When it was pointed out that the ads were only written in Chinese, he said: "Well, you can learn Chinese."

Holden had stalls at three local events in Sydney that celebrated the Chinese New Year over the past fortnight -- at Hurstville, Burwood and Chatswood.

"It doesn't matter whether you speak Chinese, English or whatever, the promotional staff there was bilingual," he said. "One of the benefits of attending that event was a $550 rebate if you bought a new car."

He said Holden was under-represented among Chinese buyers because they were not familiar with the brand.

"There's obviously a variety of different cultural communities in Australia and one of those areas that we at Holden are under-represented is in Chinese-speaking communities," he said.

"It tends to be because there are a lot of first-generation Chinese communities in Australia and they don't, as a new immigrant, understand local brands.

"Holden is not a global brand. When they immigrate to Australia they have a better awareness of global automotive brands such as Toyota, Mazda and Honda and they understandably have a bias towards those brands. We've got that against us and we need to start doing some stuff to address it.

"We've found [Chinese buyers] are open to all brands and if we can prove we've got the right cars at the right price and the right service, there's no reason we should not be on the shopping list."

Elsworth said Holden had no plans to target other ethnic groups.

"In terms of specifically targeting particular multicultural groups, we are at this stage sticking with the biggest community and the biggest opportunity and that's the Chinese. We are doing some test marketing and if it works, we'll roll it out nationally."

The sales chief said Holden would do community-based exercises, not mainstream advertising.

"This is not the first time we've done this, but we will do a lot more that's more planned and more structured," he said, adding that Holden has appointed an agency specifically for the task.

Elsworth said the Chinese promotion was no different to others offered to different community groups.

"We sometimes do a special promotion at motor shows," he said. "If you didn't attend the motor show, you don't get the discount."

Registered netball players across Australia get a discount because Holden sponsors the sport -- but they are shortchanged slightly. The netball discount is $500, not the $550 offered to Chinese communities.

"We are one of the sponsors of netball, and we sponsor the Australian team during international tests," he said.

"Offering the discount is a good way of tracking the value you're driving from sponsorships.

"The only way to really financially calculate whether it works or not is with a cashback -- because you can tally who has claimed the money," he said.