Up-market Vignale branding aims to give premium option for Ford

The word Vignale is one that the fleet industry will become familiar with in the next 12 months, as Ford seeks to establish its premium branding with the launch of high-end versions of its new Mondeo and S-max.

The Vignale models will feature significant upgrades, with luxurious leather, different colours and trims, and on the outside, new grille, chrome detailing and bespoke alloy wheels. But the changes don’t end there, with Ford looking to establish a premium service experience courtesy of dedicated sales and servicing specialists and a dedicated Vignale area of each dealership.

The firm will also bring courtesy cars to customers for service and repair work. A concierge service, phone apps and offers to access lounge facilities at airports are all among benefits that have been mooted, though the detail is still yet to be revealed.

“If people have had a Ford and want something a little more luxurious, it’s now there for them within the brand,” Ford of Britain boss Mark Ovenden tells BusinessCar. “Vignale is an opportunity to stretch the brand.”

Ovenden feels the corporate sector to be important to the new brand’s success. “I expect a high proportion of Vignale to go into fleet and contract hire,” he states. “It will work with fleet customers first and foremost because of the product and the service levels”, though he admits the firm will need to explain to the industry how Vignale’s service enhancements in particular over the regular Ford range will work for business car operators. “The personal service they get in a Ford Store will apply whether they are retail or a fleet user chooser, but the product is a key part of it.”

The Mondeo Vignale (pictured, above right) will arrive around half a year behind the regular Mondeo’s early 2015 launch, and Ford has confirmed that an S-max Vignale will follow around six months behind the second-generation people carrier’s arrival next summer.

Ford is confident of attracting buyers able to pay higher prices, says Ovenden. “When I look at vehicles like the S-max and where we attract customers from, there is no issue or solid wall that prevents us conquesting,” he says. “People are smart and if they see they can get a superior product to the one they were in, I think they’ll come across.”

The Vignale name comes from an Italian coachbuilder formed in the 1940s that ceased to exist in 1974, five years after it was taken over by Ford-owned DeTomaso Automobile. Aston Martin used the brand on a 1993 concept car, and Ford also applied it to the 2004 concept that became the Focus CC.

But Vignale is not the only focus of attention for the new Mondeo, with Ovenden keen to increase user-chooser penetration. “Ford’s market share is 14.7% but in user-chooser we don’t get anything like that, it’s dominated by the German brands,” he explains. “We see an opportunity with user-chooser, the Mondeo is a brand new car with fantastic styling, packed with technology and low-CO2 engines, so I see a real opportunity with user-chooser fleets.”

He claims the work Ford has done on cutting short cycle business is already having an impact on RVs. Ford’s volume into rental has dropped by one percentage point in the last 12 months, and now sits at 20.2%, compared with up to 40% around eight years ago.

“It’s not like rental is bad, rental customers are good customers for us but you don’t want too much of it because it affects your RV,” says Ovenden, pledging to reduce the ratio further to help residuals. He says the three-month contracts are the ones that have the largest impact on RVs, and that has been cut significantly. “If it’s good business we’ll do it, but now we don’t do rental to create registrations – some manufacturers use rental to get rid of inventory they can’t get rid of anywhere else and we don’t do that,” he declares. “We’re seeing evidence that the strategy is working and it should because it’s supply and demand. If there’s less supply, the RV should go up.”

But Ford’s UK MD is looking for growth across more of the range, pinpointing volume lifts on the recently refreshed and expanded light commercial vehicle line-up and SUVs in particular, as well as user-chooser Mondeo activity.

“We’ve been playing with Kuga, we have Ecosport and in the fullness of time we’ll have Edge, I don’t see why our SUV share will be less than anything else,” he concludes.