Ducati's Turnaround

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Federico Minoli on the Ducati brand 06.08.2004Eight years ago, the Texas Pacific Group investment fund bought Italian motorcycle manufacturer Ducati. A former McKinsey man, Federico Minoli was brought in to restructure the ailing company. To the astonishment of economic experts, the 55-year-old turnaround manager made his first priority the building of a Ducati museum. Related link: Ducati: a success story in red What does it take to make a brand into a myth? Federico Minoli: Well, to start with, you need a mythical product. But what makes a product mythical? It has to be different, unique. It has to stand for something specific. Then in addition, it needs to be linked to a specific country or region or story. Can you sum up the three key things that Ducati stands for? Desmodromic valve adjustment, the sound of the engines and the Italian design. Who are Ducati's clients? We prefer not to speak of clients but of fans. And who does your marketing data identify as being the typical Ducati fan? When I took over, I wanted to produce a segmentation of the client base. But it didn't work out. The range of clients extends from wealthy private banking clients who park their Ducatis in their living rooms all the way to simple assembly line workers who save up to pay for their Ducatis. We therefore speak about a Ducati clan or tribe. A tribe is made up of people who have something in common. In the center of the settlement is the totem, the Ducati totem in our case. This defines the product, but not the tribe; it is simply the linking element between the individual members of the tribe. Nevertheless, the profile of the Ducatisti must have changed considerably over the last twenty years, mustn't it? Twenty years ago, the core attitude was one of fundamentalism: see, I drive a Ducati. It keeps on going, very well; I, and only I, can repair it.

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