Motoring.co.uk Races Ahead with Advertising Icon Sir John Hegarty

Brand building expert the Garage Soho, founded by Sir John Hegarty, formerly of BBH, and Tom Teichman of Spark Ventures, has agreed a deal with Motoring.co.uk which sees Sir John – who coined Audi slogan ‘Vorsprung durch Technik’ – acting as creative director for the UK’s leading online automotive portal.

The move will strengthen Motoring.co.uk’s brand further and enhance its offering to car manufacturers and agency partners alike by brokering a greater relationship between the users of the site and the brand.  

Motoring.co.uk has more than 2.3 million registered users – providing valuable marketing insights across the motoring industry – and is the UK’s largest independently-owned automotive website. It recently launched its innovative car owning platform, MyMotoring. This personalised dashboard allows users to track their car’s value and brings a transparent view of new and used car pricing in real-time, whilst ensuring day to day needs like MOT, service and tax due dates are not forgotten.

Terry Hogan, Managing Director of Motoring.co.uk, says: “We've been working with Sir John and his team informally for a few months ahead of our impending funding round. We're a consumer-focused business that helps motorists throughout their entire car owning cycle, but felt that our brand wasn't supporting our business success. With an outstanding track record we couldn't ask for a better partner to help our brand stand out from the crowd. Sir John is a global branding and advertising icon and his impressive track record will help grow our business into a household name”

“The Garage Soho has been consulting on this project, with a view to being involved on an equity basis of which the terms are now formally agreed. We're delighted to have their team on board. We intend to surprise a few people with the direction that we are taking. The relationship we have with our cars can be difficult and we aim to fix that. Sir John can help us to communicate this message to our users across the UK.”

Sir John Hegarty, Co-founder of the Garage Soho, said: “'This is a great business, in a dynamic sector. Helping the founders build a competitive brand is a challenge we're looking forward to.”

Tom Teichman, Co-founder of The Garage Soho and who has lead investments in leading brands including lastminute.com, moshi monsters and notonthehighstreet.com, added: "We love big markets and disruptive models and we reckon Motoring.co.uk is already at the leading edge on the automotive superhighway - all based on years of solid experience on the road."

Chris Green, Co-founder of Motoring.co.uk, says: “We currently enjoy successful working relationships with the majority of the UK’s major car manufacturers and agency partners but would like to expand upon these and build up our profile across the industry. This will involve growing our scale to around 20 per cent of UK motorists over the next three years.

“We are delighted with the growth of our business year-on-year. Our strategy was to become one of the strongest and largest automotive data businesses in the UK, which we are on track to achieve, as well as evolving our product set which we have executed with our MyMotoring platform. Working with an advertising and brand icon such as Sir John Hegarty is incredibly exciting for us and we very much look forward to our future together.”