Profile: Adding quality to quantity.(Occupation overview)

Publication: Marketing

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COPYRIGHT 2008 Haymarket Business Publications Ltd.

Simon Hetherington marketing director, Kia, is shifting the marque's focus from value to design and reliability.

On the outskirts of Weybridge, in Surrey, are the remnants of Brooklands Aerodrome and Race Circuit, the world's first custom-built motor racetrack. The site, which hosted the inaugural British Grand Prix in 1926, is now owned by DaimlerChrysler and has been incorporated into the Mercedes-Benz World Museum. It comes as something of a surprise, then, to find that such a long-standing location of motoring quality and heritage is also home to the UK headquarters of Kia.

For some time, Kia has seemed content to rattle along in last place as a flag-bearer for cheap and cheerful value, while the European car marques, and several East Asian competitors, jostle at the front of the race for prestige. This is a reputation of which the marque's marketing director, Simon Hetherington, is acutely aware.

His appointment in June 2007 was part of a radical managerial overhaul carried out by former Toyota marketing chief Paul Philpott, who joined Kia as UK managing...

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