AUTO EXPRESS AWARDS - Peugeot takes the honours for Best Advertising Campaign Award, Confidence. Built In.

• The Auto Express Awards salute the best in the motor industry
• The winning PEUGEOT UK advertising campaign drew attention to the real benefits of buying a car
• Novel approach questioned customer perceptions, asking them to scrutinise the detail
• The ‘Confidence. Built In’ strapline is justified for customers of the award-winning PEUGEOT 308

PEUGEOT UK is in a confident mood following the Auto Express New Car Awards 2016, where it won the ‘Best Advertising Campaign Award’ with its ‘Confidence. Built In’ initiative.

The combined TV / Radio / Press / Outdoor / Social Media / Digital campaign was created by PEUGEOT UK to promote the confidence experienced by its customers. Promoted under a core ‘Built In’ message, the campaign encouraged potential customers to take a ‘closer look’, as PEUGEOT has confidence in its products that make them more than worthy of scrutiny.

The centre-piece of this campaign was a new TV commercial, produced specifically for the UK market, which challenges buyers to consider the new 308 and PEUGEOT as a brand. Filmed in Glencoe and Glasgow, the advert was produced by the UK team, to specifically address local requirements for customers buying a 308 and has been on-air since May.

Mark Pickles, Marketing director at PEUGEOT UK, commented: “This is fantastic news. Everyone at PEUGEOT knew that the 308 is a product absolutely worthy of serious consideration – due to its many attributes; high build quality, competitive specification and superb driving credentials. The advert was designed to challenge the view for customers to want to find out for themselves. We took pleasure formulating this UK campaign, confident in the excellence of our products and the detail contained within, so to receive this accolade at the Auto Express New Car Awards vindicates all our hard work and for the 308 that continues to reap success, having won the prestigious European Car of the Year award in 2014.” 

Steve Fowler, Editor-in-Chief at Auto Express, said: “The PEUGEOT 308: ‘Confidence. Built In’ campaign has impressed us all - our readers like it enough to name it one of the best three car adverts of the past year and our panel of experts agreed, naming it the very best of those put into the final by our readers. Not only is it a stylish, watchable ad, it cleverly works across different media and gets the message across superbly.”

In order to lend gravitas to the film, which took a very direct approach to questioning how people choose their next car, PEUGEOT used the recognisable and highly acclaimed actor – Peter Mullan.

The campaign also saw the launch of PEUGEOT UK’s new creative format, where a new visual layout and tone of voice were employed, together with the line “Confidence. Built In”. Future campaigns will also feature the “Built In” tagline, in order to provide a consistent means of putting across the strengths of each vehicle, in a consistent and coherent manner.

Accompanying Outdoor, Digital, Radio and Press campaigns PEUGEOT challenged prospective buyers to share the confidence it has for the 308 by taking a closer look with a 48 Hour Test Drive, giving customers the opportunity to drive and become more acquainted with the 308s numerous attributes, and to see for themselves why it is a compelling car to drive.

The UK campaign promoted the award-winning PEUGEOT 308 in GT Line specification – launched in 2015, which currently accounts for a fifth of the range take-up. The 308 is a car with many attributes; being the lowest CO₂ car in its sector, thus with the latest and best-in-class, award-winning engines it is also the most economical, while other performance models feature the most-powerful engine of its size too, in a body design that is lightest and class-leading in capability and size. The brand uniquely features the innovative PEUGEOT i-Cockpit, well-liked by its 2.2-million customers, for it combines agile handling response with a compact steering wheel, high-positioned instrumentation and a colour touchscreen – all within the view looking forward. Its standard specification is comprehensive and provides allure for its many advanced features and rewarding driving experience. 

The overall vision for the ‘Confidence. Built In.’ campaign, which spanned all major communication channels, was to challenge prospective buyers on how they choose their next car. By highlighting the key product attributes of 308, PEUGEOT demonstrated that the beauty of the 308 was also in the detail. With stunning driving footage and new photography it demonstrated that the PEUGEOT 308 is a car which marries image with detail. The campaign first ran from May until the end of June, and will now be reprised later in the autumn to maximise awareness following the success with this ‘Best Advertising Campaign Award’.

MG launches new advert for MG3 - god its crap

• National TV advert goes live this Friday 01 November
• Exclusive online preview available from today at: http://youtu.be/8lzhpAcyAOU
• MG3 Top model available from only £9,999 OTR
• Configurator featuring over one million personalisation options now live www.mg.co.uk
• A series of short brand films highlighting the personality and key features of the MG3, and Interactive E-Brochure coming soon
• Follow MG on Facebook www.facebook.com/mgmotor or twitter @mgmotor for campaign updates.

The culmination of marketing activity for MG’s latest offering, the MG3, is reached with a national TV advert coming to screens this Friday.

Marketing activity for the historic marque’s supermini includes an interactive E-Brochure which will shortly be available on the manufacturer’s website: www.mg.co.uk. As well as highlighting the trim levels, costs and the many key features of the MG3, the online brochure will feature short films giving brand insight as well as the showroom experience to those taking their first steps towards MG3 ownership.

The MG3 offers over one million personalisation options, all of which are available to view using the online configurator, which allows customers to explore trim levels and colour options as well as personalising their vehicle with a range of wheel options, coloured wing mirrors and roof, body and bonnet decal kits; available from just £29 factory fitted.

The MG3 is available in four trim lines, with the top of the range, 3STYLE priced at only £9,999, moving down to the entry level trim; 3TIME, for just £8,399.

Entry level 3TIME features a CD player with MP3 compatibility, LED daytime running lights, hill hold control and a sporty VTi 106 PS petrol engine as standard. Next is 3FORM, available for £9,299 with 3TIME specification, plus Bluetooth and Audio streaming, DAB radio and Climate control.  For those customers who prefer a sportier look the 3FORM SPORT is available for £9,549 and adds 16” “Carousel” Alloy Wheels and sporty Side skirts to its already impressive kit list. At the top of the range is the 3STYLE which takes things one step further with 16” “Diamond cut” Alloy wheels, reverse parking sensors, cruise control and automatic lights and windscreen wipers for only £9,999.

Also available is a range of warranty and servicing packages created to ensure customers drive away happy. Three year warranty is included as standard but this can be extended to suit customer needs; up to five years and 100,000 miles.  Three years servicing is also available for only an additional £550, including parts, labour and VAT.

MG3 Finance plans are available to suit all budgets as all specifications are available on PCP for just £99 a month or with zero, 10, 20% or more deposits. Customers who do not have a deposit to put down can still benefit from fantastic value for money offers. No retailer in your area? No problem, MG2U brings an MG3 to your door

TMW - The new Jaguar 3.0 Litre Diesel

Back in 2009 after only a year in production Jaguar decided to replace the 2.7LD with a new 3.0LD in the XF, this caused much debate and concern on this forum, why was it changed so soon? Why did they not launch the XF with the 3.0L to start with? and was it worth it?

Well in our opinion the answer to the last question is a definite yes!!

We have had, Thanks to the generosity of Jaguar UK, an XF to test for a week.

The Car was a 2010 MY XF 3.0L D Portfolio in Spectrum Blue, charcoal interior, warm charcola veneer with 20” Selena Wheels




Compared to the 2.7D there has been a lot of improvement, the new engine is a completely different beast, it is quieter from the initial startup where there seems to be less of an initial “roar”, to hardly being able to hear the engine when it was running.
It seemed smoother while driving and there is no lag on pulling away from a standstill due to the parallel sequential turbo boosting system,

Power is up from 207hp to 240hp cutting down the 0-60 time from 7.7sec to 6.7sec, increasing top speed slightly from 143mph to 149mph.
With better fuel consumption up from 37.6mpg to 42mpg and a claimed 51.3mpg (Extra Urban), overall weight is up slightly, I assume it is down to the new engine.
Co2 emissions for this engine is a great improvement,(199g/kg for the 2.7) Co2 of 179g/kg compares very well with the same engine in the XJ at 189g/kg considering the XJ is a larger and of similar weight



Compared to what I have been driving for nearly two years, it was nice to have some of the little extras not on mine, having a TV was a nice touch, but having to watch the budget was a bit of a downer, the sports seats had a bit more support and with the heating and cooling which was a nice feature, the adaptive cruise control takes a bit of getting used to, but on the whole I think it worked well, it did seem to be a bit intrusive on busy stretches of motorway causing the car to slow quickly at times when you came up behind other vehicles, experimenting with it in town one evening it caused a bit of a surprise when a cyclist in front caused the car to slow down for no apparent reason.

The front parking aid and rear camera is new to me and very useful in car parks, it makes you wonder how we managed without it, I think it will be a must for my next car.
The auto wipers seemed to work a bit better than on mine, and the integrated cornering headlamps are a nice feature, very useful when returning home on a dark wet evening.

The interior has not changed in layout, but to drive it is a different car, the ride seemed smoother, the wheels are the same size as on mine; however it seemed to ride the potholes a lot better.
In Conclusion while I was disappointed when the 3.0LD was announced so soon into the XF’s life, it is certainly a better car, it’s just a shame the new engine was not available for the launch.

We now seem to be known locally as "Jaguar House"............. I can't think why