MV Agusta is undergoing a renaissance under Pierer Mobility AG, which the company hopes will turn it into the definitive luxury two-wheeler brand in the North American market.
With the manufacturer looking to expand in North America, it faces a challenge, as Luca Dovesi, General Manager of North America, explained to cyclenews.com, with him explaining that the biggest challenge is trying to change the perception of the brand, as it has been very affected in the past:
– The biggest challenge is trying to change the perception of the brand. The reputation of the brand was badly affected in the past. Something different is when you have a startup, a new company, a new brand, and everything is new. People are excited. They don’t have any hard, bad feelings of the past. Now, when we came here and took over the MV Agusta project, it was really bad. Bad management, bad reputation, bad media experience, bad customer experience. The network was really in bad shape. So that is my biggest challenge. I want the people to change the bad opinion of MV Agusta from the past.
Dovesi recognizes that MV Agusta is a minor player in a much larger market: ‘I think this is one of the biggest challenges—fixing the bad reputation that the brand had in the past from an operational side. Luckily, the brand itself has been strong for the people who know it. They still appreciate and love it. They know what MV Agusta represents. They know the singularity of the design and all the features. Thank God, at least, we still have a good brand’.
Dovesi wants people to change the bad opinion of MV Agusta from the past: ‘This is even harder than in Europe, because in Europe, being centralized in Italy, the brand was a little bit better managed. It was more centralized, so people still were appreciating the brand, riding it, and buying it. But here, we were very disconnected’.