Dieter Knetchel, Head of Far East and Middle East at Ferrari, visited Lebanon to launch the new Ferrari Portofino. Beiruting.com team was present during the event and had the chance to interview Mr. Knetchel.
After Bentley and Porsche - what is motivating you to stay in Ferrari ?
For me, I have to say that I am lucky, proud, but also humble enough now to have the possibility to work for Ferrari. It's everbody's dream and it always has been my dream, and I think that I am at the peak in my career. Working here motivates me a lot because we are different, we focus on exclusivity for our clients, ownership experience for them. We make sure that we protect value for our clients. We also have a very close relationship with them. We understand what they need, it's a small company and we still have very short ways to go to reach the decision makers, and to reach our customers. It really feels more like a family. What I also like so much is that we don't push so hard when it comes to sales, we are happy to sell cars but we are more focused on creating the demand that drives the sales. It's a different business model that is very successful even in complex economic situations. It makes me proud to work for this company.
Being a Ferrari means being part of a unique future, as you always say. So what is unique about this new car?
It's a wonderful combination of elements that can produce value for the customer in different situations of his life because it's 2 cars in 1 - It's a sporty looking fast car and it's an elegant spider at the same time. We made some changes to this car to make it more versatile than the California car and can be used as an everyday car by many people now. This is an important achievement that we should point out. On top of that the performance has been upgraded as we always do - to make it stronger and faster by integrating technology and systems that make driving much funnier and much easier and of course much safer.
What are your expectations about the sales of the Ferrari Portofino in Lebanon?
Quite high expectations. Not because we think that we should always succeed but because we saw the first results of the Portofino in other markets close to here and they were very surprising. I have to say that in the middle east we are not the most traditional cars to buy - it's like a sports car. Having seen the situation and the reaction about the Portofino in the markets where we already have launched the car, like UAE, Saudi Arabia, Japan, US, Europe ... we have surprisingly many orders which have overpassed our expectations. So now of course after these first results, we can say that the car is receiving positive reactions even to customers new to the brand. So I believe also in Lebanon Portofino should be a car that gets value. So I'm very positive about the car.
Usually, these types of cars have a very segmented target market, how are you managing to maintain this target market and add new prospects?
We believe that with concepts such as Portofino being a gran turismo car is the best way to reach out to new clients that have never been with the brand before. Coming from different segments with different expectations as I mentioned, a car that can be used in many different situations not only as a sports car. With California T, we have managed to bring 70% of all the California total Ferrari brand which is a proving concept that we would like to repeat this with Portofino even more - and now we have a car that is very masculine and so we can expect people to switch to our brand. We usually do this with lots of social media, lots of driving activities. The main way to bring new people to Ferrari is to give them the opportunity to drive the car, and then they will realize how powerful and great is the car and how easy it is to drive a Ferrari - therefore most of our marketing activities focus on this.
How are you managing to keep every single Ferrari owner, a satisfied customer?
The ownership experience is one of the biggest parts of my job, and everybody's job in Ferrari. Not only selling car but giving customers to opportunity to have fun with the car. Every car owner uses the car for a unique purpose and we make sure to give every single one of them the best opportunity. Some want to be car racers, some want to enjoy driving the car with their friends, some want to enjoy the car on their holidays - so we coordinate these things and I think this is what our clients mostly want to do. In certain places people cannot drive the Ferrari everyday so we have to create convenient situations were everyone is happy. And happiness also comes along with being convinced about owning a Ferrari as something that is protected by the value.
After Lebanon, what is your next destination?
Tomorrow I'm flying to Bangkok also to launch Portofino because it is a very important market for us.
Finally, what would you like to say to Lebanese people?
I think what I would like to emphasize on being here is that we have been very successful in Lebanon in the past. We have maintained a clear number 1 market position in sports cars and gran Turismo cars, we know how we can make clients happy - we have a wonderful structure to support it. Ferrari is very convicted to maintain this strong position in Lebanon in the future. We are very happy to have a partner that has invested continuously. So there is a lot of great things that you can expect from Ferrari, and there is a lot of things we're working on and I would like to see Lebanon being so close to Europe - being one of the good examples in the world of Ferrari.
