The premium automotive category has long been defined by heritage, reputation and decades of brand equity. But as consumer expectations shift towards technology, experience and individuality, new challengers are redefining what luxury means.
In this interview, Oscar Rivoli, CEO Motors at Al Ghurair Mobility, shares how MHERO is building a new premium SUV proposition in the GCC, from challenging traditional perceptions of luxury to creating trust, brand equity and lasting customer relationships in an increasingly competitive mobility landscape.
Excerpts from the discussion:
The UAE premium automotive market is highly competitive, with consumers already having strong relationships with established luxury brands. What is the brand strategy behind positioning MHERO as a new premium SUV challenger?
We knew from the start that you can’t win this market simply by telling people you’re premium too. Buyers here have relationships with more established brands going back decades, a newcomer claiming a place in that club doesn’t move anyone. So we didn’t try to compete where those brands are strongest – the heritage, the badge. What we kept seeing, in our own network and in the Saudi launch previous to the UAE, is that a lot of the premium SUV segment has become about urban luxury, with the capability side pushed into the background. That’s the space MHERO sits in: something that feels properly premium but can also do what it claims, so the customer isn’t forced to pick one over the other.
None of it works without the collaboration behind it. Dongfeng Motor Group gives us the engineering and the product; Al Ghurair brings the years of knowing this market and the work of building a brand around it. If there’s one lesson from launching against established names, it’s that you don’t win by pulling someone away from a brand they love. You win by giving them something that brand doesn’t.
Chinese automotive brands have undergone a significant transformation globally, moving beyond manufacturing strength into technology, design and lifestyle positioning. How is MHERO working to reshape perceptions and build brand equity?
There are assumptions about Chinese brands in every segment, but we’d rather let the product do the talking. What we ask people to do is look at MHERO on its own terms, separate from the category it happens to sit in. We can ask that fairly confidently, because in our experience perception doesn’t change because you tell someone it should – it changes when they get in the vehicle. So most of what we do is about getting people to that first real encounter with the product. Once they’ve felt the materials and driven it, the conversation tends to look after itself.
For a brand this new, equity is really the distance between what you promise and what people find when they take you up on it. Keep that distance small and it builds on itself; let it grow and even the best marketing won’t hold it together. We saw this in Saudi Arabia – where people engaged with the car directly, the question of where it came from became irrelevant, and they judged it as an MHERO. That’s what we’re after here.
Luxury today is increasingly defined by experiences, personalisation and innovation rather than just heritage. How is MHERO approaching the idea of modern luxury for UAE consumers? How about across the GCC?
Luxury has shifted. It used to lean heavily on heritage, and now it’s much more about experience and how well something fits your life. Whether that’s in the UAE specifically, or across the GCC as a whole. For an established name that’s a hard thing to navigate; for a brand like ours it’s an opening, because experience and personalisation are things you can compete on from the start. So we put our attention into the ownership experience, not just the car. The car is where the relationship begins, not the whole of it, and a lot of the job is making each customer feel it was set up around them, wherever they live or drive.
This is where being Al Ghurair counts for something. We’re a long-established operator here, so we own the whole experience – the network, the service, the relationship that carries on long after someone’s driven away – and that’s where modern luxury is won or lost. Across the UAE and Saudi, there’s a generation of premium customers who define status through individuality and experience as much as through a name, and MHERO is built for exactly that person.
The UAE consumer has a unique relationship with vehicles, balancing urban lifestyles with a strong passion for adventure and off-road experiences. How did local consumer insights influence MHERO’s market positioning and storytelling?
Our read on the customer comes from decades of selling and servicing cars in this market, and from living in it – that’s first-hand, and it’s probably the most valuable element we brought to the positioning. What it tells you is quite specific. This is a young, digitally connected, experience-driven population – a large share of it under 35 – and it’s a place where capability gets used rather than just admired. Because of the geography and the way people live, one car might do the city, the motorway and open desert in the same week. Weekend desert driving isn’t a marketing idea – it’s a real, multi-generational part of life. So when someone asks whether a car can take them where they’re planning to go, it’s a practical question, and answering it properly is what MHERO is for.
That’s also why a line like “Never Back Down” lands here rather than sounding like a slogan – it names something people already know about how they drive. On storytelling, we try to stick to proof rather than claims. We don’t just say the car suits the region; we test it here first, in some of the harshest heat and terrain anywhere, before it goes on sale.
As mobility evolves with electrification, AI, connectivity and changing consumer expectations, what role will brand experience and marketing play in determining the winners of the next generation of automotive brands?
Before long, every brand in this space will have electrification, AI, all the connectivity – those stop being differentiators and become the entry ticket. Once the technology levels out, what separates the winners is trust – the kind earned through consistent performance. This is the clearest sign of which brands will still be around. For something as new as MHERO, that’s the whole job. You’re building trust from the ground up here, and it’s the earliest indicator of everything that follows. You can usually spot it before it reaches the sales numbers – people coming back, bringing a friend, staying with you for the servicing.
Marketing’s part in that is less about persuading people and more about being consistent – every touchpoint saying the same thing, and the ownership experience delivering what you promised, year after year. It’s also where the partnership earns its keep: Dongfeng’s engineering builds credibility on the road, and our service network builds it in everything after the sale. So the brands that win the next phase won’t be the ones with the flashiest technology. They’ll be the ones that turn a good product into a relationship people trust.
