Mazda to push Premium

Mazda is set to push its brand and its products upmarket but will not be launching a standalone premium brand anytime soon.

The company unveiled its brand-new fourth-generation Mazda3 sedan and hatch at this week's Los Angeles auto show.

In doing so, it referred to the concept of ‘Mazda Premium’ as an umbrella for its desire to provide consumers with more refined products and experiences.

"You can't define Mazda Premium with a single vehicle or technology,” Mazda Australia marketing chief Alistair Doak told carsales.com.au.

Rather, Doak describes Mazda premium as a holistic approach the company is taking towards the development, styling and refinement of future models in an effort to move the brand firmly above other mass-market competitors.

That said, Doak was at pains to point out that this does not mean the company seeks to resurrect its ill-fated Eunos brand. Initially conceived to take on the likes of Lexus and Infiniti in the 1990s, Eunos was spectacularly unsuccessful.

Doak suggests Mazda’s approach to the move is softly, softly – and any ‘premium’ additions to its model line-up are still to emerge, if they happen at all.

“Any business would like to be able to offer more. It's not just a case of charging more, I think it’s a case of giving people more choice and being able to keep them in the brand longer… To keep them walking up [the model range] rather than get to a point where they go ‘I’ve got no choice anymore, I have to go and buy a European or whatever’,” he explained.

“We know the brand is already very strong in Australia and elsewhere. It's seen as a ‘cut above’ brand. It's got a core strength that people see as offering more than A-to-B transport,” Doak opined.

Mazda has unveiled a number of high-end concepts in recent years, specifically the 2020 RX-VISION and Vision Coupe (top picture), but the chances of these models turning into production realities are still slim.

In an interview with Australian media at the Los Angeles Auto Show, global Mazda boss Akira Marumoto appeared to pour water on the potential of new ‘high-cost’ Mazda models.

“When we say premium at Mazda, we mean that through products, sales and service we’d like to forge a strong bond with our customers. We want to be that kind of brand.,” he said.

“[But] unlike the German three [Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz], we do not have the intention to develop very expensive products,” the Mazda Motor Corp CEO stated.

“Whether we should expand the [current] product line-up – there’s a question mark there.

“The first step Mazda is going to take is to expand model grades so that products have from entry up to very high grades,” he stated.