Cool as
Audi’s Ice Experience opens up a new world
Wednesday, November 04 2009 || Business travel || BY Mark Revington
Nice work, perfectly done, says instructor Stu Owers as I bring the Audi A4 to a halt next to him. Naturally, I feel good.
Imagine sitting in a shiny new Audi on a glistening snowy mountain top. It’s early morning with a crisp blue sky, the seat warmer is on and the windows are down. My seat is perfectly adjusted, because to drive properly I need to sit with legs bent at just the right angle to have full control of the accelerator and brake pedals, and with my elbows nicely bent, so I have full control of the steering wheel. In theory.
Twenty or 30 metres away are two rows of small orange cones marking a lane in the snow. Halfway along the lane, another row of cones is added to create two lanes. The plan is to drive full speed towards the cones, slam on the brakes just as I reach the start of the lane and then, as the Audi’s perfect German engineering comes into play, guide it into a second lane. The idea is to teach me just how good the brakes are and the control that can be achieved at the wheel of a shiny new Audi, worth around 100 grand on the hoof (or on the snow, or ice if you want to be pedantic).
All the while the calm, encouraging voice of Owers issues from a walkie-talkie next to the gear stick. “Smash the brakes,” he says as I reach the cones. “Well done,” he says as the car and I come to a quivering halt. Actually the car is perfectly behaved but the first run through gets my adrenalin going.
Thankfully Owers is big on encouragement. I’m a bit tentative on the first couple of runs but as I get used to the control the car has, the temptation to stamp on the gas, spin the wheels in the snow and leap forward like an enraged bull towards those little plastic cones becomes stronger and stronger. Driving on snow is a lot smoother and feels safer than the hard surface of a track or road when you’re chucking a car around in turns.
It’s called experiential marketing and it’s probably the most fun you can have with your clothes on. You can run all the pretty ads and billboards you like but nothing compares to the feeling of getting behind the wheel of a brand new Audi and being taught to drive on snow, and ice, by a group of enthusiastic instructors who want you to drive fast and swing the cars around.
To celebrate 100 years, Audi New Zealand flew 100 of its most loyal customers, and a bunch of motoring writers, and me, to the Southern Hemisphere Proving Grounds (SHPG) high in the mountains outside Queenstown, to drive around $1 million worth of cars on ice. Audi New Zealand general manager Dane Fisher and his team hatched the idea last year. They needed an innovative event to celebrate Audi’s centenary. A party would send the wrong message in these recessionary times, and Audi offers the Ice Experience in Northern Hemisphere countries like Austria and Finland.
Coincidentally, the team behind SHPG was looking to expand its portfolio. Initially developed as the Snow Farm, the SHPG offers winter testing for car and tyre manufacturers. It sprawls across 400ha on top of the Pisa mountain range outside Queenstown with more than 30km of compacted snow and ice test tracks, including an ice tunnel and 12 workshops.
“It was a great fit for us so we contacted them and said ‘we want to do something special for our centenary celebration’. That’s really where the idea came together,” says Fisher.
Audi leads sales in the luxury segment of the New Zealand market with 26.1% for the year to date, ahead of Mercedes and BMW. Experiential events have helped drive that lead, says Fisher.
“Experiential events are about getting close to our customers and giving them an experience of our product and what we are about. We’ve had a pretty focused driving programme on track and on road for our customers but this isn’t a driver education programme; it’s a driver experience programme, so you have to offer more driving and a higher level of enjoyment. Our customers are contributing to the cost, which we don’t always do with our programmes, but we are heavily subsidising it.”
Those customers had a great time if our day on the mountain was a guide. We were split into three groups, two of customers and one of journalists. And although we were told to drive carefully back to the starting point after each exercise — because that’s when most accidents happen — one group obviously misheard and drove like maniacs with flamboyant slides and skids.
“Don’t worry about any damage. I’ll pay for it,” one Audi owner told the instructors. Another had owned 15 Audis, clearly fitting that ‘loyal customer’ demographic. One man had brought his whole family down to enjoy the experience.
It was a first for Audi in the Southern Hemisphere and the next step is to make this a yearly event and include it on Audi’s international experience programme.
“A lot of our customers have done a lot of driving experiences with Audi but this is so different,” says Fisher, clearly delighted with the success of the centenary bash.
“A salesperson can tell you until they’re blue in the face about how great a vehicle is but unless you give someone the opportunity to experience it, they won’t necessarily believe you.”
