Saab History

George Washington University & Saab Create Advertising Focus Group

Today, I just received an e-mail from a Saab listserve indicating that Saab USA is participating with the George Washington University here in Washington, D.C. I responded to this e-mail questioning the legitimacy of the e-mail, and my response was absolutely credible, authentic and totally legitimate.

Here is what is happening:

A group of 8 MBA graduate students at the George Washington University are partnering, thanks to their advertising professor, with Saab Automobile USA this semester to create their advertising campaign for the new year, here in the United States. I should indicate that this advertising program will be the first program with Saab’s new ad agency, McCann-Erickson. that started the same time these students semester began, early in January.

This advertising campaign for Saab Automobile, as I have previously indicated, is, in my opinion, one of the most critical components for for Saab Automobile’s future in the United States. I am absolutely excited to see that this group of graduate students, literally in my back yard, not more than a few minutes away, were handed the extremely important task of preparing their substantial findings and campaign proposal to Saab Automobile USA, at the end of their semester by the last week of April.

The “GW Saab Team Focus Group” currently needs to have, by the end of this week, another 18+ completed surveys from those in Saab Automobile USA’s North East region. This region will be prioritized beginning with Boston, then New York, then Washington, D.C. and then every other location. These survey results are important, considering that they will be representing a sampling, for the approximately 45% of Saab USA’s owners that are from the North East region of the United States. In this survey, they also hope to get approximately half of the results from first time Saab owners, leaving the rest those who have owned more than one. Please enter your correct zip code in this region for verification for the accuracy of their results.

I have taken the liberty to take this survey linked below, and I also suggest you do as well. Following this survey, there will be much more that this team will be doing in the coming weeks and months, so I hope that I can help out with these efforts in any way I can, again, given that they are literally right down the street from me here in Washington, D.C.

These tasks that this team have taken on, sounds like a “dream job” for me, so here’s hoping for some great results! It’s that important!

For those of you filling out the survey below, please indicate which day you are interested in joining their conference call, as a follow-up.

Note: The Saab Reflective event as part of the New York Auto Show, will begin for the media next Tuesday, the 18th, so if you want want to watch that coverage here on Saab History instead, select the part of the conference call with the “GW SAAB Team Focus Group”, for Monday, the 17th or another day in the week besides Tuesday.

Here is the original material and a link to the survey below! Good luck filling out the survey and keep in mind that you helped contribute to the future of Saab Automobile USA’s future advertising campaign!

Update:

Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2008

Dear Saab Owners,
Thank you again for your participation in our survey and your interest in contributing to our focus group! We received an overwhelming number of responses. We have put together our focus groups based off of several factors (geographic location, time availability, etc).

If you did not receive a message from us inviting to you a focus group, there will still be an opportunity to provide your input! We will be administering a more detailed survey in the next few weeks and will invite you to participate.

Thank you again for your support,
The GW Saab Team

From: gwsaabteam
Date: Wed, Mar 12, 2008 at 10:27 PM
Subject: DO YOU OWN A SAAB? WANT SAAB EXECS TO HEAR YOUR VOICE?

Then participate in our focus group, which will either be online or a conference call. We are a group of MBA students from George Washington University working on a project for Saab, and we need your input. We will be presenting our findings to Saab executives, so this is your chance to let them know how you feel.

The focus group will take place sometime the week of March 17, 2008.

Please note, your answers will be kept confidential and your contact information will not be shared.

Please click the link below (or copy and paste into your browser) to complete a short survey to get the process started.

Click This Link to Take the Survey