Nobody has heard of Proton

I was quite surprised to find out that among all my PhD friends here at the Warwick Business School, there's only one guy who has heard about Proton, Malaysia's national car company.

A friend who's quite knowledgeable about cars told me that at one time there were a number of Proton cars on UK streets - mainly the Proton Persona (the Proton Wira). We do see some of them around in Coventry but I have never seen any of the newer models including the Gen 2, Savvy, Satria Neo or even the Impian. From my friends' reactions when I tell them about the company and the fact that it owns Lotus, Proton cars UK is obviously not doing a good job with it's marketing. From what I learnt from my sources in Proton, they want to concentrate on the domestic market which is what they should have been doing. I guess that strategy comes at a price. I am not sure about other foreign markets but when it comes to branding, Proton has a lot of work to do in the UK.