The New Age Of Car Showrooms

On Berlin’s Kurfuerstendamm avenue stands an unusual car showroom. It is only a quarter of the size of a conventional showroom, but it displays 49 models…digitally, that it. This is Audi’s third digital showroom, part of a new trend by luxury carmakers as they try to tap into the market of young affluent buyers and as they move their showrooms into prime city locations where the cost of each square foot can be phenomenally high. The digital showroom does house four physical models and is equipped with multimedia screens that customers can use to peruse all Audi models, without even having to leave the building. Rivals BMW and Mercedes-Benz are also embracing this avant garde showroom concept as they overhaul sales practices after the European market slump that has prevailed for six years.

"Staging the brand is becoming so much more important," Audi's Head of Germany sales, Wayne Griffiths, said. Audi’s first digital showroom is located in London, opened in July 2012, and the second in Beijing was launched six months later. They receive about 8000 visitors a week, 60% of which are new to the brand, which shows that this unconventional marketing tactic is successful in garnering new interest in the brand. image: luxuo.com