Клубное интервью с Джоном Томсоном (Lexus Russia)

So, over a year ago you told that Russia was the number five market in the world after Lexus Japan, USA and Canada. And do you keep this tendency this year?

Oh, yeah. We actually finished fourth last year. We finished over Canada. Of course, US, China and Japan, but then Russia. So fourth place and…we have a place where we got market share of 16%. But…you know, our strategy for next year is what we call ... and I have chosen bit of strategy in Russia ... this idea of “sustainable growth”. So actually last year was quiet a big leap, yeah, but previous year we've always grown, but maybe smaller increments, yeah? So, our strategy is really in very stable, in a long term this is in Russia small increments of growth each year in a sustainable way. We found, you know... not looking at me, who's gonna look after customers in a right way, that's the key, cause those who grow too quickly can't do that. So first, we prefer to grow in a smaller way, smaller steps, keep the business very stable, you know, looking after customers in a right way, so to us that's our key philosophy. Of course, if the product is great like it was last year we sell more cars that’s great, but of course, we have a plan to grow, but in a small way, in a stable way, this is very important for us.

I'm not going to give some names, but there are some of your competitors, whose sales really dropped last year, and how do you keep afloat, what do you do to grow the sales in Russia.

You know, the strategy in Russia is based on three things. One is to try find ways to keep growing, and, of course, one of the ways of doing that is to try, you know always look at bringing different types of consumer offers to the marketplace. For example, this time in March we have a unique trading offer for GX (300 000 rubles) and we have a unique finance offer for RX, and we keep changing consumer offers. But of course you'll also need fairy product, product is the strength, cause any car brand. You know, we've been fortunate over last year not only how we've been introducing more cars, but also the star of the cars we've changing, a lot more of emotional design. It seems to be resonating very well also with our Russian consumers. But underpinning all of that we want to be what we call a true luxury lifestyle brand so we wanna go beyond just automotive. It's important for us, because actually our history is not so old, it's 27 years. So we've a chance to keep building what Lexus is and make Lexus more Lexus. Superior quality, looking after customers good will always be our core strength and our core foundation. But we're running on a lot more brave design, more technology, better driving performance. And this sort of focus of making Lexus more of a car brand it seems strange now that we're showing pictures of boats on our stand, pictures of skyjets, there gonna be movies. You know, we have 25 million people clicking on that hoverboard that we did. We do Lexus short films, we try to do a lot more focusing on what we call the creative world. It's always good, because the creative world is always at the edge of moving to the future and the developing things will be «what's next?”. It's also very much part of our strategy is give customers what they want, keep looking after customers well, keep introducing the right product into Russia in the right time, and we fight really hard to get a right product to Russia. And then to show that Lexus is more than just a car brand, so you can experience what we call “Experience Amazing” in terms of the purpose of the service you get, the product you drive, and all these different activities that go beyond just a car.

What strategy do you have in Russia for the next year and what are your plans?

Well actually we have some very cool things happen this year, because it's 15 years of Lexus in Russia and it also coincide of introducing LC, these cars will start to ride during the summer month. And we think this combination of LC - in my mind the most beautiful Lexus ever – and our 15th year in Russia and at the same time we got these lifestyle activities coming across. We gonna show a way more emotional side of Lexus this year. So we got many activities planned starting from the next week right towards the end of the year that will show a very fresh different Lexus to consumers. So this is very much part of our strategy in Russia – keep focusing of course on sustainable growth, keep introducing great product to Russia, like we are gonna do this year and then keep showing that Lexus is a lot more than just a car brand, so we are gonna be bringing to life lots of activities beyond just a car, in fact when we launch LC, LC is gonna be linked to like a lifestyle launch of a brand. This year is going to be a really exciting year.

So, yeah, it’s pleasant to sometimes have an opportunity to talk to you and when I tell about this opportunities to our readers they are really exited about it, they’re always happy when our stuff gets a chance to talk to some company representative, to you. And also, this year we have more than one hundred thousand users already in Russia. And recently we made a research with Autostat, you know them, and they told that each second Lexus owner has visited our site. So maybe you would like to say a couple of personal words to our readers because they will be very pleased to hear something from you personally to them.

We’re delighted, yeah, especially of yourself and all your readers being so passionate about the brand. The team tells me many times a lot of great thing people writing with that amazing knowledge of Lexus, and real passion for Lexus, to me, it makes me very proud. You know, I’m very proud to work for Lexus in Russia, it’s amazing place, we are fourth biggest market in the world, doing amazing jobs, the dealers doing amazing jobs, some great product coming through. And than we have this great Club Lexus Russia - so many passionate readers! I couldn’t think of a better place to be for Lexus in russian internet. 15 years of Lexus in Russia with great supporters like yourself and your readers and for sure we can tell that we are gonna have many more exiting products coming to Russia soon and I hope you’ll get a chance to see these great new cars.