Mariam Abouzeid
The most dangerous time for a brand to become quiet is often when everything appears to work.
Sales are steady. Operations are efficient. Customers know the product. The brand has earned trust. Silence can feel like confidence. Why keep explaining yourself when the market already knows who you are?
Because operational excellence is not the same as category leadership.
Operational excellence protects availability, service, consistency and customer confidence. Category leadership does something different. It shapes what people believe the category should mean next.
Categories are not defined only by brands that sell the most, operate best or have been trusted longest. They are also defined by the brands that keep introducing new language, comparisons and expectations into the market.
When strong brands go quiet, new definitions enter
This is not about established automotive brands losing relevance. Range Rover, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Lexus, Porsche, Bentley and Rolls-Royce continue to hold powerful advantages in heritage, service infrastructure, resale confidence and cultural meaning. In the Middle East, those strengths matter because vehicles signal taste, status, family practicality and trust.
The risk is different. When strong brands become relatively quiet about what the category should become next, they leave room for others to define the conversation.
That point became clearer this week when Ferrari unveiled the Luce, its first fully electric car. Reported at approximately USD 640,000, the Luce matters less for its performance figures than for what it signals: even one of the world’s strongest luxury marques is choosing to “talk in a different language” as electric luxury changes the codes of desirability. That does not weaken Ferrari’s heritage. It shows that category leadership has to be renewed, even by brands that already own the category in memory.
A similar shift is visible in the premium SUV space. Luxury is no longer being discussed only through badge, comfort or road presence. Increasingly, it is being reframed around usefulness: how well a vehicle moves between family life, executive comfort, technology, electrification and long-distance convenience.
The recently introduced Zeekr 9X is one example, but not the only one. Models such as the Li Auto L9, the AITO M9, and China’s wider group of so-called “Series 9” flagship SUVs show how challenger brands are expanding the definition of what a flagship SUV should do.
Luxury is being redefined by expectation, not specification
This is where the lesson becomes useful beyond automotive. A new entrant does not always need to displace an incumbent to influence the market. Sometimes it only needs to make buyers ask a different question.
The Zeekr 9X is relevant because it has helped make that question visible. Rather than asking consumers to choose between heritage and technology, it sits in a segment where buyers increasingly expect both comfort and capability. According to CnEVPost, it surpassed 50,000 cumulative deliveries by April 2026, at approximately USD 77,600.
The value of this data is not that it proves product superiority. It shows that buyers can assign premium value to a newer brand when that brand gives them a clear reason to believe in the category.
In China’s large six-seat SUV market, Gasgoo has described how family structures, electrified powertrains, 2+2+2 seating layouts and shifting price expectations are reshaping demand. That insight travels well to the GCC, where one vehicle often needs to serve as family transporter, status symbol, business-class cabin and technology statement.
The cost of assuming the market remembers
The lesson is not that established brands must become louder for the sake of volume. It is that operational strength does not automatically protect category meaning.
Research found that brands which stop communicating for a year or more often see sales decline over time. The principle is simple: memory needs maintenance. If a brand stops explaining why it matters, another may explain the category differently.
For the Middle East, this is increasingly relevant. Chinese automotive brands could grow from 10 per cent market share in the Middle East and Africa in 2024 to 34 per cent by 2030, citing AlixPartners analysis. That does not mean established brands are being replaced. It means buyers are becoming more open to new definitions of value.
Campaign Middle East has also noted that Chinese automotive success in the region depends on localised storytelling rather than simple translation. That applies to every brand. Category leadership is not just having a strong product. It is making that product meaningful in the market where it competes.
The real takeaway
The more interesting story is not that Zeekr introduced another luxury SUV, or that Ferrari introduced an EV. It is that brands must keep defining what customers should value next.
Operational excellence keeps the machine working. Category leadership makes sure the market still understands why the machine matters.
In fast-moving categories, advantage belongs to brands that define what customers should value next.
(Mariam Abouzeid is PR Manager, MEA at Nothing Technology)
