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Plummeting
Dollar Forces BMW Dealership toward Bold Marketing Shift
— April 1, 2008
With a troubled US economy causing so much nervousness throughout
the business community here, one retail
establishment has decided to take an aggressive stance against declining
sales. Bob’s BMW is launching an entirely new marketing strategy
targeted specifically at Germans and other Europeans who are now doing
their shopping in the US in greater numbers than ever before. With
the euro continuing to gain strength against the dollar every day,
Europeans are cashing in by coming here to spend their money. In an
official announcement today, Bob Henig, owner and president of Bob’s
BMW, said that he intends to capture as many of those euros as possible,
even if it means turning away the few remaining US buyers who can
still afford to own a BMW motorcycle.
Bob’s BMW has been for many years one of a small number of flagship
BMW motorcycle dealerships in the US who helped the revered German
brand grow its domestic market. But Mr.
Henig says that the glory days for American BMW riders might be gone,
for the foreseeable future, if not forever. “We’re seeing
more and more Europeans coming in here to shop, and they seem to be
practically giddy at the prospect of their buying power. By the same
token, fewer and fewer Americans can afford the premium BMW products
anymore, so we’ve been sort of backed into a corner, you know?
We knew we couldn’t survive unless we adapted to the changing
market,” Bob explained in a recent interview.
Several changes are underway at Bob’s to make the dealership
more appealing to Europeans. The front page of the popular Bob’s
web site has already been converted to German, because Germans represent
the biggest sector of potential customers. And soon visitors to the
site will also be able to choose Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Czech, Greek,
Swedish, Norwegian, and Croatian. (No plans as yet to translate the
site into French because, according to research done by Bob’s
marketing staff, French customers are practically impossible to deal
with anyway, so why bother.)
Other
initiatives include mandatory language training for all staff and
even a change of appearance to go with it. Instead of the typical
conservative American style polo shirts worn in the past, sales staff
at Bob’s will now wear lederhosen or, optional for women, seductive
bar wench costumes which, in their revealing cut, aim to appeal to
the generally loser morals of European shoppers. In the next few weeks,
a beer garden will be installed where the service department is now.
Mr. Henig says that with all the Europeans buying bikes and shipping
them back to the continent, there are no longer enough local customers
needing service on their bikes to justify keeping the department open.
The new beer garden is expected to generate earnings far in excess
of what the old service department earned anyway. A food service specializing
in wurst and schnitzel will be added soon as well, guaranteeing even
greater income. Locals who want to patronize the beer garden will
be welcome of course, as long as they are willing to speak German
when they order their Bier und Bratwurst, bitte.
“We see nothing but big potential here“, Mr. Henig exclaimed.
“Sure, we’ll miss our old American customers, but that’s
a thing of the past and now we all just need to look to the future!”
We’re betting, dollars to donuts, that he’s got it right.
Special message to our US and Canadian (Anglophone) customers:
Please note this press release will be the LAST communication in English
to come out of Bob’s BMW. We thank you for your patronage over
these many years of English-speaking friendship. Auf Wiedersehen!
retail
establishment has decided to take an aggressive stance against declining
sales. Bob’s BMW is launching an entirely new marketing strategy
targeted specifically at Germans and other Europeans who are now doing
their shopping in the US in greater numbers than ever before. With
the euro continuing to gain strength against the dollar every day,
Europeans are cashing in by coming here to spend their money. In an
official announcement today, Bob Henig, owner and president of Bob’s
BMW, said that he intends to capture as many of those euros as possible,
even if it means turning away the few remaining US buyers who can
still afford to own a BMW motorcycle.
Mr.
Henig says that the glory days for American BMW riders might be gone,
for the foreseeable future, if not forever. “We’re seeing
more and more Europeans coming in here to shop, and they seem to be
practically giddy at the prospect of their buying power. By the same
token, fewer and fewer Americans can afford the premium BMW products
anymore, so we’ve been sort of backed into a corner, you know?
We knew we couldn’t survive unless we adapted to the changing
market,” Bob explained in a recent interview.
Other
initiatives include mandatory language training for all staff and
even a change of appearance to go with it. Instead of the typical
conservative American style polo shirts worn in the past, sales staff
at Bob’s will now wear lederhosen or, optional for women, seductive
bar wench costumes which, in their revealing cut, aim to appeal to
the generally loser morals of European shoppers. In the next few weeks,
a beer garden will be installed where the service department is now.
Mr. Henig says that with all the Europeans buying bikes and shipping
them back to the continent, there are no longer enough local customers
needing service on their bikes to justify keeping the department open.
The new beer garden is expected to generate earnings far in excess
of what the old service department earned anyway. A food service specializing
in wurst and schnitzel will be added soon as well, guaranteeing even
greater income. Locals who want to patronize the beer garden will
be welcome of course, as long as they are willing to speak German
when they order their Bier und Bratwurst, bitte.