already, less reliant on fleet sales than many of its contemporaries (the split
being approximately 50% fleet and 50% retail sales). The loosening of the
central buyer’s grip made available a new market segment – user choosers
- who requested particular makes and models from their employers.
Having identified this market situation, Rover designed direct market-
ing initiatives – the Catalyst programme and later the Conquest ’91 pro-
gramme – aimed at providing maximum impact on the individual retail
private purchaser and also the user chooser.
Interlink and Superlink
Catalyst and Conquest ‘91 built upon the Company’s earlier experience of
direct marketing gained through its Interlink and Superlink follow-up ini-
tiatives.
These used direct marketing to exploit the sizeable database which the
Company possessed as a result of registering the warranties of all cars sold.
By today’s standards this information was not particularly comprehensive,
but the Interlink programme was innovative at the time and broke new
ground.
The database provided names and addresses of customers, details of the
vehicles purchased, and records of claims made on warranty. Using it, the
Company mailed customers enquiring if it was time to change their car,
and enclosing information about the current product range.
No evaluation exists to measure the impact of Interlink and Superlink.
Even so, Interlink was seen to be a worthwhile approach which at least
maintained contact between the Company and its customers.
Superlink managed to generate a slightly higher level of dealer involve-
ment, but it was still dogged by the same inherent criticisms which could
be levelled at its forerunner.
The basic problem was that both programmes were assumptive. That is,
the Company had to make assumptions of what the customers would do
in the future, based on their behaviour in the past. It did not take account
of changed circumstances of customers or how this might affect their
buying behaviour.
Clearly any new initiative, while owing a debt to Interlink and
Superlink, would have to be radically different to overcome these flaws.
This understanding stimulated the creativity which gave birth to the
Catalyst programme.
The Catalyst programme
Initial considerations
To be successful the Catalyst programme had to be fuelled by higher
The customer market domain: Managing relationships with buyers 99