Pulsar to be drip-fed Down Under

Nissan will carefully drip-feed new Pulsar models to the Australian marketplace following the all-new small car's official launch one year from now.

Due to arrive Down Under in the first quarter of 2013, the new car is expected to drive Nissan sales in its tilt at the number one full-line importer crown. Outgoing boss, Dan Thompson, says the car will add "easily thousands" of sales to the brand's local tally.

But, says Thompson, the brand is geared to carefully roll out the new car. Unlike most other makers, multiple variants of the car will not appear at launch.

"The way we’ve decided to roll Pulsar out is staggered," Thompson told motoring.com.au

"So [debut with] with sedan, then hatch and then what we’ve done is we’ve lined up probably two or three key lifecycle product actions and we’ve sort of given a six to 12 month sort of breathers or breaks between the actions," he stated.

This strategy will help keep the car "fresh" in buyers' eyes, asserts Thompson. He believes the rollout is unique to the segment.

"The first, probably, 24 months of Pulsar is just nonstop and it’s a really aggressive product onslaught. We believe experience with some other product, and seeing with some of the manufacturers have done, that’s the best way to drive sustainable success -- instead of dropping everything you’ve got into the product from day one and then waiting three years for a lifecycle update," he said.

"We’ve done that [staggered roll out] with Dualis -- launching 4x4 and going into 4x2, then seven-seater and then, eventually, the last piece will be diesel. We’ve seen that that’s worked really well... It has kept the product fresh, which is really critical in our market when you’ve got 64 brands and hundreds of models. To try and have newness in your product is in our opinion absolutely critical."

Thompson says the Pulsar's communication strategy will be robust enough to keep buyers in the market even if their chosen variant isn't available day one.

"I think the product actions are so condensed that we’ll be talking about product actions as we go from one to two to three to four. So, for instance, when we launch a sedan, everyone will know there’s a hatch.

"It will be our job to sort of keep people in the market... whether it’s a body style or a powertrain or whatever the action happens to be," he said.

Pulsar was once Nissan's most successful passenger nameplate Down Under – rivalling the marque's LCVs and SUVs for total volume. It was controversially replaced by the Tiida in 2006.

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