Land Rover hunts first CRM agency

land-roverJaguar Land Rover is on the hunt for its first dedicated CRM agency in the UK to work on the Land Rover brand, just a month after its global customer insight chief quit to join the Rugby Football Union.
It is understood requests for information (RFIs) were sent out last week, with chemistry meetings pencilled in for next week. ISBA is reportedly supporting Land Rover on the pitch.
It is unclear who is handling the pitch on the client-side following Mujahid Harris’ appointment to become the RFU’s first ever head of CRM. Harris had been at Jaguar Land Rover just under two years, joining from Heathrow Express.
The search comes despite the fact that the marque already has a number of global agencies on board, including OgilvyOne – recently crowned the leading worldwide customer engagement agency by Forrester – which handles the digital business.
The Tata Motors-owned brand appointed Ogilvy at the tail end of last year, having previously worked with Wunderman, and its digital subsidiary Blast Radius, for four years.
Brand experience agency Imagination also works on the business. It recently launched a bespoke, VIP visitor experience using 3D augmented projection mapping to ‘build’ the all-new £126,000 Range Rover car in front of the consumer’s eyes.
Under Tata Motors’ ownership, Jaguar Land Rover has witnessed a major turnaround in fortunes. At the end of last month, it reported an 11% increase in profits – with pre-tax profits reaching £1.7bn – for 2012/13.
While this has been partly driven by rapid growth in China and the Asia Pacific markets, sales in Europe were also up, 18% to 80,994.
The move coincided with Land Rover making a dramatic improvement in the annual What Car? Satisfaction survey, leaping up from 12th last year to 6th place in 2013. Back in 2004, Land Rover languished in 32nd place, way behind more modest manufacturers such as Skoda, Daihatsu and Proton.

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