Lamborghini bullish as sales strategy pays off

HOW do you sell supercars when the world is seemingly falling apart? For Lamborghini, the strategy for its recent sales success revolved around one thing: Keeping the customer happy.

Not an easy feat when a once-in-a-century pandemic has slammed borders shut, uprooted supply chains, and cast a gloomy shadow over the world.

Even so, the past three years turned out to be Lamborghini’s most prosperous period, delivering year after year of consecutive growth.

“I think that first of all, it shows the resilience of the brand,” said Lamborghini’s Singapore-based director of the APAC region, Francesco Scardaoni, at the Australian debut of the brand’s new hybrid V12-powered Revuelto supercar flagship.

“The brand, like any other brand, passed through a pandemic, but we remained at the top – actually increasing our overall business, and this was something amazing. That’s thanks to our approach through the pandemic, especially on our marketing activities and communications.”

Pre-pandemic, in 2019 the Lamborghini Urus completed its first full year of sales, and it is this one model that has supercharged the brand’s production, lifting volume by roughly double after its launch.

The brand’s pivot to virtual marketing initiatives during the pandemic period helped sustain that sales momentum, and in 2022 production tallied 9233 cars, up from 8405 units in 2021 and 8205 in 2019. However, the company has well and truly found its ceiling.

“We are at max capacity,” said Mr Scardaoni. Lamborghini’s Sant’Agata Bolognese plant is tapped out, and forward orders will have the company operating at its limit for years to come.

In the first half of next year the Urus hybrid will revitalise that nameplate and follow on from the Revuelto as Lamborghini’s second electrified product, while the second half will see the debut of the hybrid successor to the Huracan.

Looking further ahead, Mr Scardaoni was bullish on the brand’s immediate future.

“Our production capacity cannot be increased … so the main driver (of growth) is the order bank, and with the current order bank that we have, basically our product line is sold out to 2026,” he said.

“Despite the economic conditions that are changing in the different countries all over the world, as of today we don't see any recession for what concerns Lamborghini.”

Mr Scardaoni went on to explain exactly how Lamborghini got itself into this enviable position while navigating a world in which ordinary life had been forced to a grinding halt.

“When it (the COVID-19 pandemic) started, we didn't sleep – we immediately tuned and changed our marketing strategy and communication strategy over to a digital strategy. We launched, during the pandemic, four cars, thanks to augmented reality, virtual reality.”

In May 2020, just two months after a the World Health Organisation upgraded COVID-19 from a “public health emergency of international concern” to a full-blown pandemic, squashing all public gatherings, closing international borders and introducing the world to the phrase “social distancing”, Lamborghini launched the Huracan EVO RWD Spyder.

The launch took place entirely virtually, but rather than hold a glorified Zoom call, Lamborghini introduced an augmented reality (AR) element to the event, using an app to render a real-time 3D image of the new Huracan variant over whatever the users’ phone or tablet camera was pointed at.

It meant ‘attendees’ of the launch could still pore over the details of the new car as they would at a physical reveal, except doing so from the comfort – and safety – of their own lounge room.

“We tried to be close to our customers in a difficult moment,” Mr Scardaoni continued.

“We let them dream about Lamborghini even if they were not sitting in the car, and these are things which increased the brand strength among not just Lamborghini customers, but also potential Lamborghini customers.”

The Huracan STO would also receive its first public viewing via AR in 2020, while Lamborghini extended its reach across social media by joining Tik Tok that same year.

In August 2020, Lamborghini also rolled out its Ad Personam Virtual Studio, an online extension of its real-life in-dealer personalisation space, which Mr Scardaoni said has turned into a critical part of Lamborghini’s marketing funnel since its launch.

“We released a new configuration system, available online so customers could embrace with it, play with it, create their own dream cars and send the order to the dealers. When the pandemic was over, they could visit the dealers and create the final masterpiece,” Scardaoni explained to GoAuto.

“Personalisation of Lamborghini has always been something that has been really strong. In the latest years there’s been an even higher usage of the Ad Personam program and this also created those amazing results in terms of financials – the operating profit contribution margin of each single car increased a lot thanks to the Ad Personam program, not only in Asia-Pacific, but all over the world.”

But getting them into the funnel is one thing. Keeping deposit-holding customers keen during a global component shortage and extended wait times was another challenge.

“It's important to keep customers with the brand waiting for the car to be delivered. We have a ‘contact program’ that allows Lamborghini to be always in touch with the customer. (hey get) a letter signed from our president and CEO Stephan Winkelmann, congratulating the customer and welcoming the customer to the family.

“The customer will receive a replica scale model of what they’ve ordered, and then of course, the customers are constantly invited to events, events that can be driving activities, but also lifestyle events.

“What is important is that our customers dream about Lamborghini, even when they're not sitting in a Lamborghini. We want our customers to be close, close to the brand, as much as we can.“

Although that customer-centric strategy may not scale well to mainstream brands, it is working a treat for Lamborghini: sales are better than ever.