Tara Rush will take over the chief advertising officer function at Audi of America, transferring up from her present place as chief communications officer. She assumes most of the duties carried out by vice chairman of promoting Loren Angelo, who’s departing the automaker after a 12-year stint through which he held varied advertising roles.
Rush, 41, will oversee all U.S. advertising efforts, together with promoting, retail advertising, shopper expertise and model partnerships, CRM and social media. She’s going to proceed to supervise communications till a successor is called.
Rush has an in depth background in PR, having served as chief company affairs officer for Heineken USA earlier than becoming a member of Audi in 2019. She takes over advertising because the model, like all automakers, seems to be to come back again from the early days of the pandemic, when widespread dealership closures despatched gross sales tumbling. Audi, which is managed by Volkswagen of America, noticed gross sales drop 16 % within the third quarter. However the quarterly gross sales of 47,893 automobiles marked the model’s greatest efficiency of the yr, besting gross sales of 41,396 within the first quarter and 34,843 within the second quarter, according to Automotive News.
An Audi spokeswoman didn’t touch upon Angelo’s subsequent transfer however mentioned he would stay at Audi till Dec. 1 “to assist with the transition.” She credited him with overhauling the model’s advertising group “to align extra strategically with the altering panorama of shopper engagement by reinforcing digital and social media.”
Rush will report back to Daniel Weissland, president of Audi of America. “Tara shouldn’t be solely an skilled model skilled, she is an distinctive chief with a ardour for driving significant change,” Weissland said in a statement. “Her mixture of exterior expertise and confirmed inside monitor report—coupled along with her strategic and daring decision-making—are an incredible match for this function.”